Appallingly Wrong and Irreparably Broken
by Tessa Crowley
Summary: Everything in Harry's life is pretty terrible, all things considered. His life is an endless cycle of crippling self-hatred and bitter sarcasm. So when Draco Malfoy comes sauntering back into it, sharp as a tack and twice as fit as he has any right to be, the only comfort Harry can find is that he can't possibly make it any worse. You know, probably.
1. A Bad Start

**Author's Note:** The cover art is a selection of a piece by mushroomtale, who is awesome! Check out her tumblr at mushroomtale-fanart dot tumblr dot com!

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><p>The minute I Apparate into the main foyer of the Ministry of Magic, I am assaulted at all sides by paparazzi. Visits with the Minister of Magic are a matter of public record, which means that any time I visit Shacklebolt, every major news organization knows about it two weeks in advance.<p>

There are a lot of shitty things about my life, but generally speaking, paparazzi are the shittiest. I rank them among the top reasons I became a hermit following the dissolution of my marriage, followed closely by the actual dissolution of my marriage.

Some might say that paparazzi will never be as bad as a messy, painful divorce. To those people I say: shut the fuck up about what you don't understand.

I grimace and push my way through a sea of bursting flashpots and shouted questions. It's a deafening mess, and though I try not to pay any attention, one reporter manages to shout more loudly than the others—

"Mr. Potter, are you still planning not to attend the Moot?"

Not this shit again.

"No comment." I give one journalist – well, "journalist" – what is perhaps an unnecessarily hard shove to the shoulder to get past her. I know just where Shacklebolt's office is, of course, and the faster I can get there, the better.

Thankfully, the Minister's Wing is strictly warded, and the moment I pass through the sheer film of magic, all of the shouting abruptly stops, and it's the best part of my day thus far.

I consider, as I walk, how dreadfully fucked up it is that the highlight of my afternoon is _not_ hearing reporters shout questions at me.

Then again, most of my life lately has been pretty fucked up, so perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised.

The aurors guarding his office don't stop me, which leaves me free to fling open the doors and stride right up to his desk.

"Can we make it fast?"

Shacklebolt looks up at me. He doesn't seem alarmed, either by the sudden clatter or my entrance. In fact, he looks more exasperated than anything else.

"Good to see you in the land of the living, Harry."

"I don't want to be here," I remind him.

"I got that from your last few owls." He pulls off his thin golden spectacles and sets them down neatly on his desk. "Close the door."

I close the door. When I turn back, Shacklebolt has risen from his desk and is moving around to the other side of it. He leans against the handsome mahogany and regards me in silence.

I'm really not in the mood for banter – granted, I never really am these days – so rather than give him the chance, I cut in again:

"So? Are we going to talk or am I here to admire the décor?" I gesture with one arm around his office, which is admittedly quite classy. It's all scarlet and bronze, just like the office of the most powerful man in Wizarding Britain should be. Still, I hate it on principle.

Shacklebolt sighs. "Are you going to the Moot?"

I am overcome with the desire to beat my head into the wall. "God's sake, Shacklebolt, not you, too, with this shit."

"There's a reason everyone's bringing it up," he reminds me.

"I have exactly zero interest in a bunch of self-important pureblood snobs trying to run the world," I say.

"You're oversimplifying it."

"I'm _not going_. I fought a war to put an end to petty, purist shit like that, Shacklebolt. So did you!"

"It's not—" He stops suddenly, sighs, and rubs the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, like he's dealing with a petulant child – a reaction that only makes me feel even more petulant. "Harry, it's not petty, purist shit. The Moot is the most important legislative meeting in the country."

"Attended exclusively by rich, pureblood aristocrats," I return.

"Attended by _heirs of noble families_," Shacklebolt insists.

"And you don't find it a little suspicious that all the noble families in attendance are rich, pureblood aristocrats?"

"And _you_," he says. "You're the last scion of House Black – you have to start acting like it!"

"I am _not_ going to play their game, Shacklebolt!" I say, a bit louder than is probably polite. "You shouldn't, either! Is this why I'm here? Did you call me out here to try and bully me into this ridiculous Moot?"

Shacklebolt sets his face and drums his fingers on the edge of the desk. He doesn't respond immediately, but when he does, it's with resoluteness.

"Yes," he said. "That's why you're here. If you're not going to do right by your inheritance, Harry, I'm not going to support it. I'm telling Wanda to stop managing your accounts."

It takes me a minute to remember what the fuck he's talking about. Wanda, my mind eventually recalls, is an accountant that Shacklebolt had hired for me to manage the Black estate. After the war, he'd been eager to foist her off on me "until I could manage them myself" – a day that had never come. But at this point—

"Fine," I say. "Fine. I'll manage them myself."

"Good luck with that." His voice is clipped, impatient. He moves back around the desk. "Maybe when you see the consequences of it, you'll realize why exactly we need the Moot."

"It's a fucking Gringotts account, Shacklebolt! How hard can it possibly be?"

* * *

><p>Pretty fucking hard, as it turns out.<p>

"House Black owns an _orphanage?_"

I hear a soft, hollow _pop_ from behind – Ginny opening up another bottle of wine, no doubt – though by the next sound, not without sending the cork flying across the room.

"Shit," she says.

"Aren't orphanages supposed to be run by the state?"

"I hate the cork charm. Where the hell is Kreacher? Isn't he supposed to be doing this?"

"They don't just own it, they _operate_ it," I say, flipping over the expense report. "Christ, how much of wizarding society do stodgy old pureblood families actually own?"

"There are no clean wine glasses."

She appears at my side and sets down a coffee mug in front of me, on top of the pile of papers. It's full of cheap red wine and has "WHO FARTED?" written on it in big block letters. I move it off the papers.

"How can one Gringotts account be so damn _convoluted?_"

Ginny sits down across from me. Her hair is tangled and her lipstick is smudged. She's gorgeous and disheveled and when I look at her I am reminded of the beautiful family we nearly started, of the perfect marriage we almost had. Looking at her brings the most intense emotional pain I have ever known.

But I keep her around anyway, because I hate myself, and also her a little bit. I'm banking on the fact that she feels the same way when she looks at me. Misery loves company.

"It's fucked up," I tell her.

"Sorry," she says, "wasn't listening." She takes a sip of her own wine-filled mug ("I HATE MONDAYS!").

Two years ago, when we were married, I would have been pissed off about that. These days I just move on.

"The account," I say. "Apparently Sirius left me a whole lot more than Grimmauld Place by naming he is heir."

She lowers the mug. The rim is stained fire engine red. "Well," she says, "House Black was a Consul family, wasn't it?"

"It's eight a.m."

"What?"

"It's eight a.m. You shouldn't be drinking."

"Yes, well, I shouldn't be a lesbian, according to Ron, and yet I was having sex with a woman not three hours ago."

It's always nice to be reminded of the fact that your ex-wife is sleeping with other people. And by nice, I mean soul-crushing.

"House Black was a Consul family, so they own most of London," she continues. "You should get someone to manage it."

"Shacklebolt took her off it," I answer, suddenly starting to regret storming out of the conversation like I had.

"Find someone else. That reminds me, I need you as a plus-one."

"What?"

"Going to a thing," she replies. "Correspondent's dinner for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Hobnobbing, elbow rubbing, that sort of thing."

"That sounds awful," I said. "Also, no."

"Not asking, love. You're going."

"Why don't you bring whatever woman whose panties you're in?" If my tone is a little bit cruel, I blame it entirely on the fact that she completely broke my heart eight months ago.

She snorts. "Lavinia isn't really the take-her-out-in-public type."

"I'm not going."

"Yes, you are." She knocks the mug back and finishes off what must be a quarter of a bottle of wine in one long, horrifyingly impressive pull. "You're going for the same reason I'm sitting at this table."

I move my mug of wine away from her, just in case she tries to take it. She definitely does not need any more. "And what reason is that?"

"Because you are utterly incapable of saying no to me."

I could never accuse her of not knowing me.

"Wear something sexy," she says.

"I don't own anything sexy."

"Then at least wear something not awkward and frumpy."

"No promises."

"I'm going to bed."

She rises to her feet, straightening out the short blue dress. It is at that moment and with the context clues that I realize— "You haven't actually been to sleep yet."

"I have nineteen years of heterosexual behavior to catch up on; there's no time for sleep!"

She staggers out the door of the kitchen. I watch her leave, hating her with such incredible intensity that I shock myself. I would ask myself at what point my life became this fucked up, but I already know.

"It's Friday at seven!" she shouts from the hallway. "And seriously, wear something sexy!"


	2. A Miserable Affair

Considering the fact that my ex-wife was, not four hours ago, knocking back a mojito at a bar and getting more tail in one evening than I had in my entire life, she looks astonishingly put-together. Sort of loose and slapdash, sure, but the look works on her. It accents the asymmetry of her dress and makes the smoky eyeshadow look sultry instead of inappropriate.

"God damn it, Harry, what did I say?"

"I don't know," I answer. "I don't ever listen to anything you say."

"I said not awkward and frumpy. You look like a grandmother."

It was the same formal robe I always wore to public functions, which is to say it was three years old, off-the-rack, and dusty (figuratively as much as literally). Luckily, I had the advantage of not giving a shit.

"Let's just be thankful you got me to come at all."

Ginny smacks me in the elbow with her purse. "An extremely ugly grandmother."

I scanned the room. "Considering what's in style these days, I'd say I could have done much worse." I watch an older witch pass us, wearing what appears to be a live fox as a shrug. Probably only spelled to appear alive, but still.

"This is why I divorced you," she tells me.

"Really? I thought it was the lesbian thing."

"It was both."

"Good to know."

She takes my arm anyway and we move into the ballroom. It's all done up with silver streamers and blue-white fairy lights. The room looks beautiful, but I can tell it's most definitely a Ministry function vis-à-vis the fact that no one is having any fun.

"I hate this and I want to go home."

"Well, don't hold back on your feelings, Harry."

"Why am I here? How did you talk me into this?"

"You're here because I need arm candy. You don't have to talk to anyone, and I promise you can leave after we dance and the pictures are taken."

"I hate dancing. And I hate pictures."

"You hate everything these days."

She isn't wrong, which only makes me angrier.

"I'm getting a drink."

"Don't get drunk," she tells me, which is rich as hell coming from her.

I shrug out of her arm and make my way through the crowd. I take a glass of what I'm sure is absurdly overpriced champagne from a table and, as I drink, consider the fact that I am at a public function I hate supporting a broken government for no easily identifiable reason.

The champagne is good, at least, so I have that going for me.

"Well, I never," says a voice from behind and I turn toward it.

That turns out to be a mistake, because before I can properly work out what I'm seeing, I inhale half of my glass of champagne. Not a sensation I would recommend, carbonation in the lungs. Still, it's almost forgettable.

Before I recognize who it is, before I put the name to that pointy, porcelain face, I immediately know that I want to fuck the person in front of me. The reaction is surprisingly base. It comes from the same part of my brain that tells me when I'm hungry.

And I feel absolutely ravenous.

"Harry Potter. Haven't seen you in years," says Draco Malfoy – _Draco Malfoy?_

But there he is, Draco Malfoy, with shiny designer shoes, a fitted black-on-black dress robe, and cheekbones that could cut glass. He has lost all the brutal severity of his teenage years and replaced it entirely with a casual, effortless poise. His hair is tousled, his gray eyes are shining, and I want to fuck him into the nearest horizontal surface.

I am not as alarmed by the realization as I probably should be.

It's not my fault, probably. I quickly decide that there almost certainly isn't a man alive who wouldn't want to fuck him.

He goes to pick up his own flute of champagne and I stare at the large, expressive hands as they lift the glass. He is all limbs. Limbs and white neck.

"Wouldn't have expected to see you here."

I realize, somewhat belatedly, that I haven't said anything.

"I'm unpredictable like that," I answer.

Malfoy's response is not immediate. It arrives with a knowing smirk.

"Aren't you just."

He drinks some champagne. The lines of his throat roll. Merlin's tits, Malfoy is fit. Twice as fit as he has any right to be. I'm actually a little bit angry at how gorgeous he is. Going around in public like that. How does he not start riots just by existing?

"See something you like, Potter?"

Still a git, though. It doesn't put me off that much. I mean, my life is already a swirling cesspool of madness and self-loathing. How could Malfoy being the hottest thing this side of the sun make things any worse?

"What are you doing here?" I ask.

He laughs like satin and honey. "What am _I_ doing here? I'm a Malfoy. What are _you_ doing here?"

"Ginny's arm candy."

"There it is," he laughs. "I suppose I should have known you'd be here under protest. I suppose it would be too far-fetched a possibility to presume that you were making any sort of effort to live up to your inheritance and care about politics."

Smug bastard. Time may have turned him into a willowy Adonis, but it hadn't helped his personality any.

Still—

"How do you know about that?"

"The entire wizarding world knows," he says. "The last scion of House Black shirks his duties and refuses to attend the Moot? The world loses its collective mind."

I groan. "The fucking Moot."

He smirks at me. I want to lick it off his face. "Your petulance is adorable." God, if only he would keep his mouth shut.

"You're not going to try to talk me into going, are you?"

"Not that I don't care, but I have a sneaking suspicion you won't listen to me anyway. So no, I'm not going to talk you into it."

"Well, you'd be the first." I lean against the table and take what is perhaps an overlarge pull of champagne. "You'd have thought not attending the Moot was some sort of war crime."

"Spoken like someone who has no idea what he's talking about."

I do him the courtesy of not rising to the bait. "Bad enough Shacklebolt is trying to blackmail me into going to the damn thing. Now I'm stuck managing the most convoluted Gringotts account in the world."

He cocks an eyebrow in a perfect arc. "You're managing the Black estate? I'd have thought you'd have an accountant."

"That's where the blackmail comes in."

He laughs again. "I suppose Shacklebolt didn't get to where he is by being stupid. Do you need help with it?"

I finish off my champagne. "What?"

"With the estate. Do you need help managing it?"

I eye him up and down. I do my best to look suspicious, but I am rather preoccupied with the way the arc of his hipbone stretches his dress robes.

"Why?" I ask. "Got a spare accountant?"

"Unlike you, Potter," he says, "I actually manage my estate on my own."

"The Malfoy estate?" I say before I can stop myself. "House Malfoy is a Consul family?"

I regret the question nearly before it leaves my mouth. Of _course_ the Malfoys are a Consul family. Owning most of the magical world would be right up their street.

"It's genuinely endearing that you have no idea how the legislative branch of our government operates, Potter."

"I know plenty," I answer curtly. "The problem is that I don't like it, not that I don't understand."

"Oh, Potter," he says, voice almost like a sigh, "do you still feel the need to play the hero after all these years?"

"You're right. Perhaps I'm overreacting. It's only the government, after all."

I take another flute of champagne and down it in preparation for what I am sure will be a viciously obnoxious response, but it doesn't come. When I next look back at Malfoy, he's leaning that perfect arcing hip against the table and staring at me thoughtfully.

I can see some sort of idea forming behind his eyes. Whatever it is, it's assuredly not good.

I cannot force myself to give a single shit.

"I'll stop by and lend a hand," he says, which causes me to inhale more carbonation, though my lungs seem to have built up a tolerance and I don't cough quite so much this time around. "You know, if you're not too proud to turn me down."

"Why would you want to help?" I croak.

"Because House Black owns two hospitals, four global charities, an orphanage, and a host of companies that drive the magical economy," he says. "Because as angry as you are at the system, it's the only system we've got, and it's important, and if someone doesn't help you, you're going to fuck it up and take wizarding society down with you."

Christ. He's still got that silver tongue of his. I'd be more wounded by the lashing, but I still find myself incapable of shit-giving.

"I'll stop by your place on Sunday," he says. "I think I can squeeze you in around six."

My mind struggles to come up with a clever retort based around the word "squeeze," which leads to a rather distracting train of thought about – once again – fucking Malfoy into the floor.

What the hell had my life become?

He finishes off his champagne and sets down the flute. "Feel free to stare at my ass as I leave," he says, and walks away before I have a chance to react.

And, well, with an offer like that, how can I _not_ stare at it as he walks away? It's certainly one of the nicer things to look at in the grand scheme of things.


	3. An Indecent Proposal

I'm not the sort of person who obsesses over things, really I'm not.

Well, all right, I'm not _anymore_. I'll be the first to admit that I had a phase in my younger years where "obsessive" didn't even begin to cover it.

But that was years ago. I can say with confidence that these days that I sincerely do not care about anything enough to obsess over it. In fact, I occasionally go far out of my way to avoid caring about things. It would be endearing if I weren't aware of the fact that it's probably rooted in profound depression.

All that said, it's quite distressing when I spend the next few days thinking about Draco Malfoy. I spent more than enough time in my teenage years obsessed with him and was not keen on adding to the statistic.

But I think about him anyway. I think about the sexy, self-assured swagger, so different from the overreaching and unconvincing bravado I used to know. I think about those too-long limbs and the white neck. I think about his razor sharp wit.

Mostly, though, I think about fucking him.

I staunchly refuse to wank to it, though, tempting as it may be. A man has to have some pride. I make it a rule in my head: I will not wank to Draco Malfoy.

And then he shows up on Sunday, and it's pretty much all I want to do the moment I lay eyes on him. I blame the fitted blue jumper with the too-long sleeves.

"Morning," he says.

"Is it?" I answer. He shows himself in.

"All day, so far." He looks around the foyer. "You've let this place go to shit."

"Didn't have much to work with in the first place." I suppose I should be more defensive, but I can't manage it. Apart from eclipsing apathy, the only thing I can really focus on is the fact that— "Are you wearing Muggle jeans?"

"Are you staring at my ass again?"

"Is your answer predicated on mine? I don't think I've ever seen a piece of clothing with a conditional existence."

He laughs, startled. "That's clever. When did you get clever?"

"It's easy once you stop caring what people think about you."

"I suppose it must be. Yes, Potter, they're Muggle jeans."

"I never thought you'd stoop so low."

"I'm unpredictable like that."

This whole verbal sparring thing is uncomfortably close to flirting. The smirk that tugs at his lips isn't helping.

"Besides," he continues, "I sort of like it when you stare at my ass."

Scratch that, it's _definitely_ flirting. I am flirting with Draco Malfoy. It's a little disorienting when I consider the fact that I identify as heterosexual and have for most of my life.

Granted, it's not daunting enough to keep me from staring at his ass as he heads into the kitchen. The jeans really do flatter it something awful.

"So where's the docket?" he asks, as though the conversation _wasn't_ the weirdest thing to happen to me today.

"Table."

He sinks down into the chair like he owns the building and tosses one leg over the other. Tits, he's even wearing Muggle trainers. _What is going on._

"I can see the former accountant's work," he says, changing subjects with such ease it actually makes me a little angry. "She's been doing upkeep, but not really been adjusting anything."

I consider whether or not I want to offer him something to drink. After a moment I decide against it and sit down across from him.

"That sounds fine. Can you teach me how to keep doing that?"

"It's not something you want to keep doing."

"Why not?"

"Because the world doesn't stand still. The needs of these places change. Funding and oversight has to adjust with the market and economy. Last month, St. Tottenham's Ward Home for Girls asked for an additional 2,000 galleons annually that they couldn't get."

I frown. "Why couldn't they get it?"

"Because you never approved it, apparently." He flips over a piece of parchment. "Did this accountant come bothering you around May last year?"

I'm about to open my mouth with a reactionary _no_, because why on earth would I turn down an orphanage that wanted more money, until I remember—

Wanda, the accountant, actually _had_ come to me. She had been simpering and obnoxious and asking all sorts of questions that I didn't understand, asking for my signature on something.

As I recall, I had slammed the door in her face.

"Maybe," I say slowly.

"Do you want to approve the additional funding now?"

I groan. "Yes," I said, "of course I do. Can't you just set it up so that all their requests for more funding are approved and they can support themselves?"

"You want to give unrestricted access to _all_ the institutions House Black owns? Even Sackham's Bank of Wales?"

Despite myself, I'm surprised. "I own Sackham's?"

"A 51% share, technically," he says, consulting another sheet of parchment. "This is why you need to pay attention to the estate, Potter. It's complicated and important and there is no easy fix for it."

"I don't want to play this game, Malfoy," I say severely. "I don't like this – this fucking oligarchy where only wealthy pureblood families decide what's what."

He frowns at me. "It's really more complicated than that, Potter."

"I'm sure it's plenty complicated! That doesn't mean it's not _wrong_. It's all _wrong_, Malfoy."

"You're passing judgment on something you barely understand," he says, sounding a bit defensive. "The truth resists simplicity, and you can't—"

He stops, sighs, looks back down at the papers. His long fingers fuss with the corner of a piece of parchment. He wets his lips. All at once I forget the conversation and become acutely, unnaturally focused on his tongue and all the things it could do.

"If you really want to understand it, you'll have to see it for yourself," he says. "Hell, I'll need to see it, too, to really understand the architecture. Meet me at Gringotts."

"Fine," I say, still staring at his mouth, hunting for any more sign of that tongue, scarcely knowing what I just agreed to.

"Tomorrow at ten, let's say. Can I bring this docket with me?"

I nod. Malfoy produces his wand, gives it a flick, and the haphazard pile of parchments organizes itself into a neat pile.

"You know," he says as he gathers up the pile, "I lied before."

"What?"

"About there not being an easy fix. There is an easy fix."

I frown, momentarily distracted from the shapes of his mouth. "There is?"

He tucks the pile underneath his arm, shifts his weight to one foot, plants a hand on his hip, and says, "You could marry me."

I laugh. It's sort of reactionary, really.

The only problem is that Malfoy doesn't laugh with me. Slowly, I start to realize—

"You're serious." It's not quite a question.

"Like a case of dragon pox."

It takes me a moment to work through what I'm hearing, and a moment more to come up with a cogent response to it – not that there's really any combination of words in existence that could come close to a suitable reaction to that kind of statement.

"Well," I say, slowly, "I'm flattered, Malfoy, but you'll have to forgive me for being a bit of a traditionalist. Ass staring straight to marriage – there's usually a few more steps in between—"

"We're a good match," he says brusquely. "Politically, economically. Combining the Malfoy and Black estates wouldn't be difficult, and I have all the know-how needed to run them. Not to mention it would set a social precedent, a public match between a pureblood and half-blood."

My head swims. I start to wonder if this is an elaborate hallucination. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

"It's a good idea, Potter," he continues, unperturbed. "Once you start to understand how the Consul works, you'll understand why. Besides…"

He pauses, drifts off. His eyes move down my body. I recognize the look. I'd been giving it to him last time we spoke, while I was undressing him with my eyes and fantasizing about fucking him over a table.

"I think we both know there are a few other perks that might come with it."

_Fucking Christ,_ that _voice_. It's liquid fire in my veins, stronger than firewhiskey and twice as lethal. I feel a strong pulse of blood that goes straight through my thigh and into my cock.

"Well, shit, Malfoy," I say, "if you want to get me into bed, all you had to do was ask."

He smirks. "Tempting, but no," he says. "Not yet."

He bends down, lips near my ear, hair brushing my face. My heart slams in my throat.

"I'm saving myself for marriage."

This tells me two critically important pieces of information:

First, Draco Malfoy is a virgin.

Second, he has just indirectly admitted that he would give it to _me_.

"See you tomorrow, Potter," he says, before turning on the heel of his Chuck Taylor trainer and exiting the kitchen. I remain sitting, cock half-hard in my jeans and head swimming.

Moments after the door closes and I hear the crack of Disapparition, I break my very important rule about not wanking over Draco Malfoy.


	4. An Unwelcome Development

I wouldn't have turned down the opportunity to talk to someone – anyone at all – about Malfoy's visit, if only to confirm that it hadn't been some bizarre fever dream, but as a career hermit, I had no one available. Even Ginny wasn't around, though talking to her specifically likely wouldn't have been the best idea. I could already hear the beard jokes, and I was keen to avoid them as long as possible.

So when I finally make it to Gringotts on Monday, I am still half-certain that the whole thing had been an elaborate hallucination – at least until I see him standing at one of the desks.

No more ass-hugging Muggle jeans anymore, which is a bit of a shame, but he still looks impressive in a pinstripe vest, white Oxford, and bright green tie. A sort of sexy office worker look on him. Before long I am imagining peeling it off him.

He sees me out of the corner of his eye and turns. His reaction is somewhere between a genuine smile and a smirk.

"You're late," he says.

"Wasn't sure I was going to come," I answer, which is true.

"Avoiding me, Potter?"

"Yeah." (Also true.) "Pretty much."

"I'm wounded."

"Then you maintain your composure very well."

"Does Mr. Potter have his key?" interjects the goblin at the desk, peering up at us over a pair of shiny, rectangular spectacles. I fish it out of my pocket and hand it over.

The goblin eyes it, sharp eyes moving up and down the brass shaft of the key. After a moment, he says—

"Follow me."

Then he slips off his chair moves down the hallway. Malfoy follows at a brisk pace.

"Given my offer any thought?" he asks as he walk, his tone almost offensively mild. It's the same sort of tenor he'd use to remark on the weather.

"I was half-sure that 'offer' was some cruel joke."

"How many times must I assure you that it wasn't?"

"We can't get _married_, Malfoy."

"Sure we can. It's perfectly legal."

"As if there's even a chance that's what I mean."

We follow the goblin deeper and deeper under Gringotts. Damp fills the air. It's been years since I've been down here. Not since the war. Memories of dragonfire creep into my mind and it takes more effort than I would care to admit to smother them back down.

"We're a good match."

"We really aren't."

"I mean politically."

I grind my teeth. "Forgive me for being so old-fashioned as to demand a marriage have foundation in love."

"That didn't work out so well for you last time. Perhaps it's time to switch strategies."

My head swivels around. Malfoy falters. A look of self-awareness and regret passes over his face.

"Too mean?"

I glare at him.

"Too mean," he decides. "Sorry."

The worst part, of course, is that he's absolutely right. Not that I have any intention of admitting it. I'm perfectly content to let him stew in his own guilt.

We come to the all-too-familiar mine car, the door of which the goblin pulls open. Malfoy steps in first and I file in behind him.

You don't ever really get _used_ to the Gringotts mine cars, of course, but at least this time around I know what to expect. I brace both hands on the sides of the car just as the goblin steps inside, shuts the door, and it rockets off with a shriek of grinding metal.

"You know," I can hear Malfoy say over the sudden, all-encompassing rush of sound, "they say the strongest marriages are always built."

Racing through Gringotts in a mine car with Draco Malfoy who is trying to convince me to marry him. At what point, I find myself wondering, did my life take a left turn into screaming insanity?

"Brace!" the goblin suddenly shouts, though not soon enough for Malfoy, apparently – the mine car goes over a sharp dip and Malfoy jerks slightly and goes tumbling backward into me. I catch him with one hand on his side.

The jolt of adrenaline fades when the mine car rights itself, but my heart doesn't stop hammering. It takes me a moment to realize why – I have a face full of Malfoy's sweet-smelling hair and his ass pressed firmly into my pelvis.

Fuck.

"Did you do that intentionally?"

"I didn't," Malfoy answers, sounding just a little bit breathless, "but I'll take it as a compliment that you assume I can wandlessly alter the path of a mine car."

He shifts his hips and _fuck_, tits fuck shit shit that feels good. Is he really doing this here, _now?_ I look back at the goblin, but he hasn't noticed; he's focused entirely on steering. And in the meantime, Malfoy is grinding himself back against me, hips rolling, and that's his hand on my thigh and fuck fuck fuck fucking fuck.

"Malfoy," I growl.

"There's your foundation, Potter," he answers, head turned, looking sideways at me through too-long lashes. "I can't imagine a better one."

This is so completely fucked up and I cannot get enough of it. There is nothing about this situation that isn't utterly preposterous. The ex-Death Eater, ex-enemy, ex-school rival is trying to convince me to marry him by way of driving me crazy with desire, and _it's working_. All I can think about is grabbing him by the hips, ripping off those expensive designer trousers and fucking him so thoroughly he'll be walking with a limp for a week, and wouldn't it be _worth_ it? My sex-addled brain is convinced, right at that moment, that it is. To conquer him, to be the first one, the only one – fucking Christ – my hand tightens on his hip, I grind back against him, and through the rushing air, Malfoy makes a gorgeous little noise like a kitten—

—the mine car stops abruptly. Malfoy stumbles forward, just catching himself before he falls.

His face, I noticed, is flushed, and I'm pleased to see I wasn't the only one affected.

"Here we are," the goblin says, apparently having noticed nothing. He steps out of the mine car and approaches the vault door – a very large one, made of cast iron, number 291.

As he unlocks it, Malfoy steps out and adjusts his vest. I watch him hungrily, loathe to let him compose himself again when he looks so delicious disheveled.

"If you'd be so kind as to wait outside," Malfoy says, rearranging his hair with a quick spell. "Mr. Potter and I will be discussing business of the Consul."

"Of course."

The doors swing open with a loud groan. Malfoy strides right inside. I flex my hands at my sides and follow him.

I am momentarily distracted from my rapidly mounting plans to work Draco Malfoy out of his clothes by what I see inside the Black vault.

My personal vault, of course, is plenty full, but I had never seen anything like this. There are not so much piles of galleons as _mountains_ of them, at least fifty feet tall, gleaming and bright. Far overheat at the top of the room, even more galleons fly in while others fly out, all through one large portal hovering overhead. On the wall nearest the door, there is a large brass counter, which I could only assume is keeping track of the money as it arrives and disappeared in real time.

"Fuck," I say before I can stop myself.

"Right now the income-to-payout ratio is in the green," Malfoy says, "and there's no reason it can't continue to be once it's properly adjusted."

"How on earth…" I begin, but I can't finish the question. I'm not really sure how to phrase it.

"An extraordinarily complicated set of centuries-old magics," he answers. "Automatic withdrawals and deposits are made as they arrive."

"How can – this isn't—"

"Do you understand, Potter?" he asks, drawing my gaze away. "Do you get the gravity of this now? House Black is a major engine driving the economy. You can't just forsake it."

"But that is _fucking ridiculous_," I say. "This is – this is a staggering amount of money – it's _insane_ that the entire economy could collapse because one guy is shit at accounting!"

"It wouldn't collapse," Malfoy says. "There are enough Consul families to ensure that wouldn't happen. I mean, granted, it would shake the market up something awful, and there would probably be a recession—"

"How are you not fucking appalled at this, Malfoy?" I spin on a heel and face him. "This much power shouldn't be vested in a small handful of people!"

Malfoy rolls his eyes, the glib bastard. "If you think we don't know that, Potter, you're out of your mind."

"Then why has it never _changed?_"

"Trust me, we've been trying – for _years_, the Consul has been trying!"

"Forgive me for skepticism, Malfoy," I snap, "but last time a bunch of rich pureblood families got a taste of power they nearly committed genocide!"

Draco narrows his eyes. I snap my mouth shut.

"Too mean?"

His glare is all the answer I need. At least we're even now.

His nostrils flare and he sets his face. "Come to the Moot," he says. "See for yourself what we're doing. What we've _been_ doing. Let me show you _why_ this marriage would actually be a good idea—"

"I cannot for the _life_ of me see how combining all this economic power with something comparable would be in any way _beneficial_ to magical society, Malfoy!"

"It's _complicated_," he insists.

"It's fucking absurd!" I counter.

He shoves at my shoulders. Before I know what I'm doing, I'm grabbing him by both arms and spinning him, pinning him into a wall. He takes in a sharp breath. I can smell his hair again.

And God, I should want to knock his teeth in, but instead I want to grab him by one leg and fuck him into next week.

"Potter," he says tightly.

"A word of advice, Malfoy," I say. "If you're really set on convincing me to marry you, don't try to make an economic argument. It is clearly insane. And there is no pragmatism that will ever be more persuasive than how badly I want to fuck you."

Malfoy actually shudders under my hands. I pull away from him, a bit worried that I said too much.

He looks up at me, pupils blown wide, chest heaving under his vest.

"Come to the Moot," he manages to say, not for the first time.

"I need to do research," I answer, which is true. Malfoy has certainly succeeded in his endeavor to prove to me just how important this is – it's important enough that I know I have to do this on my own terms.

"Potter."

I turn and leave the vault, head full of thoughts of gold and politics and power and fucking Draco Malfoy.


	5. A Dirty Tactic

Ginny is laughing so hard that she seems to be having trouble breathing.

This would not normally be a problem but for the fact that she hasn't stopped for nearly ten minutes.

"You are the worst person in the world," I tell her, which only makes her laugh harder. I drink my tea because it's less likely to get me arrested than beating her over the head with the kettle.

She tries to pull herself together, tries to say something – but the moment she wipes her eyes and sees me, she dissolves back into laughter again.

"Should I just leave you to it?" I ask. "There are things I could be getting done right now."

"I fucking _knew_ it," she wheezes. "I _called_ it; sixth year, I fucking _called_ it."

I drink more tea to quell the murderous urges rising in my chest.

"You were _obsessed_ with him! Practically stalking him! And you were going on and on about how you thought he was up to something—"

"He _was_ up to something," I remind her sharply.

"—but I never bought it for a _second_. I _knew_ you just wanted in his pants! And you still do!"

"I swear to God, Gin—"

"I was privately amazed you two never just hate-fucked in a corridor and got it over with!"

I try to take another sip of tea but the mug is empty. For Ginny's protection, I refill it.

"And now history repeats itself!" She is nearly choking on her own spit and laughter. "All this time, we were a beard and we never knew—"

"Are you really so focused on the attraction that you missed the part where _he wants to marry me?_"

She's still wheezing, almost shaking with laughter that's finally starting to settle. She wipes at her eyes again, shoulders trembling.

"Merlin," she laughs, finally calming down. "No, I mean, it's a great idea. I'm just hung up on the irony of it all."

"Excuse me?"

"Excused."

"No – wait, what?" I must have misheard her. "You think it's a good idea?"

She laughs again, though this time not for ten minutes straight and so hard she has difficulty breathing. "Of course it is, pillock. It's a _phenomenal_ idea. You two are a perfect political match."

I can't believe I'm hearing this. "I can't believe I'm hearing this," I say, on the off-chance it's not plainly visible on my face.

"Oh, don't look so _surprised_," she laughs. "You know he's right. Especially with the Consul Dissolute in the works. You two would be perfect for each other."

"Am I the only person in the world who's not crazy?"

From the sitting room, there's a rushing sound of flame and soot – someone's just arrived by Floo.

"That's right, Harry," Ginny says, rising to her feet, "project your problems outward. Hello! Who's there?"

She heads into the sitting room. I groan and rise to my feet to follow her, which turns out to be a bad idea, because—

"Draco Malfoy!" Ginny says, a bit too loudly. "Were your ears burning?"

He charms the soot off his robes, eyes moving from Ginny, to me, then back to Ginny.

"Good to see you, Weasley. How's drunken debauchery treating you?" I'd expect him to sound vindictive, but instead he sounds genuinely curious.

"It's the best," Ginny answers, and instead of sounding sarcastic she sounds genuine. "There are apparently a very large number of lesbians into gingers. Who knew?"

"Lucky you."

This conversation is so surreal that I consider the possibility that I am having an out-of-body experience. But Malfoy looks right at me again and says—

"May I borrow your ex-husband?"

"Borrow? I insist you keep him."

She claps me firmly on the shoulder and gives me the textbook definition of a shit-eating grin. I consider pulling her hair or something, but that seems juvenile, so instead I step on her foot.

"Ow! Fuck you, then!"

"Won't be a moment, thank you."

Ginny lifts her chin and makes an attempt at a departure with dignity. I glare at her all the way out.

Then I immediately regret letting her leave, because now I am alone in a room with Draco Malfoy. Last time this happened, I'd nearly had sex with him up a wall in my Gringotts vault.

I set my face.

Malfoy moves forward, tucking his hands into his back pockets – fuck sake, he's in Muggle jeans again, this time with an untucked black dress shirt – and moves forward.

"How did the wards let you in?" I ask.

"Good to see you, too," he answers. "And they always let me in. I'm a Black by blood."

Of-fucking-course. I make a mental note to have Kreacher alter the wards out of spite.

"Had an opportunity to think about what I said?"

Oh, I did plenty of thinking, all right. Most of it with a hand around my cock and images of him gasping and moaning as I fuck him stupid. At some point, I had given up on any illusion that I didn't want him. I'm not proud.

"About the Moot," he supplies when I don't answer.

He's still walking forward. I am extremely aware of it, of the ever-collapsing gap between us. I am also aware of the tiny slice of skin visible on his stomach from where the shirt stretches. In fact, I can't stop staring at it.

"I've been doing research," I answer, eyes unmoving.

Malfoy keeps approaching. "Find anything interesting?" he asks, and I notice that his voice has dropped. I want to look up to read his expression, but I'm still fixated on that stripe of white stomach.

"Apparently there have been Consul families that have defected in the past."

"That's true."

"House Carlisle and House Barthon," I continue, fairly sure I'm getting the names wrong but banking on the fact that Malfoy wouldn't know. "They managed to defect and the economy didn't collapse."

"One caused a war and the other sparked a riot that nearly destroyed London. And it's pronounced _Barton_, by the way."

I might have read about that. My ability to recall facts is inversely proportional to how close Malfoy is, apparently.

"Look," he says, "there are a lot of very good reasons you should come to the Moot. There are a lot of very good reasons we should get married. They're long and complicated and, for all their profound importance, almost impossibly boring to explain. But I can explain them."

"I do want to hear them," I answer. Not quite as badly as I want to rip his clothes off, but then there isn't much higher than that on a list of things I want.

"More or less than you want to fuck me?" he asks, which immediately draws my eyes away from that lovely little stripe of skin. I am fully prepared to regret ever having said that to him, but Malfoy looks so sinful that it's completely distracting me from any regret. "What, you think I wouldn't hear you?"

I don't answer, mostly because there's not really anything to say. Malfoy closes the gap between us and reaches out to straighten the collar of my shirt. His hands are large and careful on thin wrists. They brush at my shoulders, smooth the front of my shirt.

"Would my time be better spent convincing you that getting me into bed would be well worth overlooking whatever reservations you might have?"

Once again, I don't answer. Malfoy's hands move lower, down my chest and onto my stomach, soft movements of fingers and knuckles. My breath picks up.

"Because I have a feeling it would be," he says. At some point his voice had dropped to a whisper. "After fifteen years of foreplay, how could it not? I spent most of my young life hating you and wanting you in equal measure."

_Fuck._

What the fuck is even going on? Is this really my life? Is Draco Malfoy actually standing in front of me, admitting to the fact that he's wanted to sleep with me since we were teenagers?

My life is so far beyond fucked up that it could be tried for war crimes.

Malfoy's palm is on my coc_fuckfuckshitohfuck_.

"Malfoy—" I gasp. I grip his wrist, though I'm genuinely not sure if it's because I want the hand off or want to make sure it never leaves.

"Don't get me wrong," he says, and he rubs at my cock through my trousers and presses himself into me and oh fucking Christ. My free hand reaches up out of its own volition and knots in his hair, a gesture that draws a gorgeous little whimper out of him. I bury my face in his hair and Malfoy's hands start to get frantic, tugging at the button and the fly of my trousers, and I just stand there and let him because honestly, why the fuck not? "I did _hate_ you, Potter. I hated you so much. And I was jealous. And I never understood why until you shot up three inches and filled out that fucking Quidditch uniform—"

"_Fuck!_" Malfoy's hand and pushes down beneath the pants and that satiny hand wraps around my cock. The angle is awkward but I have never cared about anything less in my entire life. I swing him around and push him into the wall with such force that the shelf over his head rattles. Malfoy only seems encouraged, and his hand starts to move. Draco Malfoy is wanking me off and I'm grinding into his hip and his hand and loving every second of it.

"Do you want to fuck me, Potter?" he whispers into my ear, breath ragged, and the words quite literally send a shiver down my spine, send me fucking into his hand all the harder.

"Fuck," I croak. "Yes."

Malfoy groans. His free hand knots in my shirt. "I want it, too," he admits, voice high and strained. "Merlin, I don't think I realized how much. I want you to fuck me open."

Draco Malfoy has a mouth like sin. Because of course he does. He has a hand like silk and a body like a Greek muse – why wouldn't he also have the filthiest fucking mouth I'd ever heard? My head fills with images of fucking him and my body hurtles toward climax. I am oversensitive, electric, taut like a bowstring. I fuck into Malfoy's hand and grind into his hip and breathe in the sweet smell of his hair.

"I would be so good," he says, voice halfway between a whine and a groan. "I would ask for it so nicely and take it so well—"

I haul him up by one thigh and slam him into the wall again. A picture frame falls off the shelf and clatters to the floor. I grind into him more desperately, fucking into his hand that's trapped between our bodies.

"—hhnn_nnhaaah_— Merlin – Potter, I'd beg if I had to – I'd spread myself open for you, let you come inside me—"

And, well, that's the upper limit of my self-control. Malfoy admits to wanting me to come inside him and at once I am thinking of nothing but just that, and the image is so fresh and raw in my mind that I am coming, all at once, ripping open and spasming against his hand, panting hard into his hair.

Wave after wave after wave, mind blanking, body dissolving into atoms. Draco Malfoy has just made me come with an intensity I had not previously thought possible.

It takes me a moment to come back down to earth. When I finally open my eyes, Malfoy is still there, still with his one leg half-wrapped around my waist, still with those gorgeous, lust-blown silver eyes.

"Come to the Malfoy Manor for supper on Friday," he whispers. "Let me keep convincing you."

All at once, I realize how desperately and incredibly fucked I am.


	6. An Unconvincing Ploy

Look, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, I'm really not stupid.

I mean, I _know_ that there is surely something vaguely nefarious about this whole thing. Ex-enemies don't just wander back into peoples' lives and propose marriage. That is not how the real world works. And with all the power and money and political pull at play, it doesn't taking fucking Sherlock Holmes to figure out that there is something about this story that I don't know yet – and assuredly will not like. You know, _aside_ from the parts I already don't like.

But here I am anyway, stepping out of the hearth and into the front room of the Malfoy Manor, because despite knowing all of that – despite knowing that Malfoy is obviously deceiving me in some way – my brain, as it happens, exists almost entirely inside my cock.

It raises some very interesting questions about self-awareness and deception. Am I really being fooled if I'm aware I'm being fooled? Is it really manipulation if I know I am manipulated?

Of course it fucking is. Just because they're interesting questions doesn't mean they're not fucking obvious as well.

"Mr. Potter," says Lucius Malfoy, who apparently doesn't age, because he looks exactly the same as he did when I was twelve years old and jailbreaking his elf. He's adjusting the sleeves of his robe and eyeing me, as though he's not quite sure what to think. "So good of you to join us."

I'm not really sure what the protocol is here. The man is guilty of torture and conspiracy and probably a few war crimes besides, and is only not in Azkaban on my good word. He is the former servant of the man who killed my parents, and the father of the man I am currently desperate to fuck. What form of address could possibly be acceptable?

But, well, it's not like anything else in my life makes any sense. I see no reason to start trying to act as if it does.

"Wotcher," I answer, charming the soot off my robes. Malfoy Senior's eye twitches almost imperceptibly. "Where's Draco?"

"Dressing, I would imagine," he answers. "He should be down presently. Do you like lamb?"

I've never had lamb, but I've also never been picky. "Sure."

"Then dinner should be suitable."

I eye him for a moment. He is so bloody _polished_. Perfectly arranged hair, immaculately tailored robes, symmetrical to an almost unnatural degree.

I feel an overwhelming urge to tell him _your son has had his hand on my cock_. Just to see what would happen.

I resist.

"May I be candid?" he asks suddenly, apropos nothing.

I frown. "Sure."

"I think you should reject Draco's offer at marriage."

All right, so apparently Malfoy Senior knows about the marriage thing. At this point I really don't have the energy to be surprised. More interesting is the fact that—

"You think it's a bad idea?"

"I think it's a superb idea," he says. "Politically and economically, you two could not be better matched. Draco was smart to put the offer on the table."

"I thought you wanted me to reject it."

"I do." He drums his fingers (far too long – I see where Draco got his) on the head of his cane and keeps eyeing me. I can see the first hints of disdain rising on his face. "I submit that it is an excellent match in all respects except one. A political marriage is still a marriage, Mr. Potter, and all marriages require emotional commitment, trust, and mutual support. I remain unconvinced that you can provide my son with any of that."

I find it very difficult to be offended. "Well, don't hold back on my account."

"I looked into your recent whereabouts," he says. "Divorced, bitterly – three years in reclusion – hostile and angry toward reporters – fallings out with your former friends… I'm sure you'd agree with my assessment when I say that you are a mess."

I laugh, just once. There's not much humor in it. "You're not wrong," I say.

"Then turn down his offer," he says. "Draco is not invested in you yet – at least, not as invested as he could be. If you break it off now, he won't be hurt. But if you let him grow attached to you and then hurt him, I will personally carve your still-beating heart from your chest."

I laugh. I'm not sure why it seems so funny, but it really does. Is he in on this? Is he trying some bizarre reverse psychology on me? Just when I thought my life couldn't get any more surreal.

"I'll be making all choices for myself," I say, "but thanks for the input."

"I hope you're not scaring him, Father."

Malfoy Senior's nostrils are flared, and his eyes don't move away from me. "You couldn't expect me not to try."

He emerges from a side door, dressed for dinner, hair tousled and grinning. "Good to see you, Harry," he says. "Hungry?"

* * *

><p>"He likes you."<p>

"He doesn't."

"I'm telling you, he only gets cross with people he likes. Everyone else he just doesn't bother with."

"Were we at the same dinner?"

The Malfoy Manor is, apparently made up mostly of drawing rooms. The one we move into for after-dinner drinks has a nice view of the garden and a roaring fireplace. A house elf arrives in short order with a snifter of brandy.

"You know, he doesn't want us to get married."

Draco has just taken his drink when I say it, and he looks up in surprise. "He said that?"

"He seems to think I'll hurt you."

I study his face for any trace of duplicitousness. All I see is a momentary look of confusion that soon passes into one of resolve.

"He's just overprotective," he says. "I'm sure I can handle myself. Besides, we could do a lot of good if we join our houses."

I sit down in an armchair near the fire. "I'm still not entirely convinced that's true."

Malfoy hasn't sit yet. He stands by the fire and takes a long pull of brandy before answering: "The bigger a House is, the more regulations there are on it," he eventually says. "Stricter oversight, harsher penalties for misconduct, and private companies win back more control over their assets. The Consul has been trying for years to slowly combine all the houses and eventually nullify all its economic power."

I nearly laugh. "Right," I say. "You've been _willingly_ trying to give up your own power out of the goodness of your hearts."

"No, not out of the goodness of our hearts," he answers pointedly. "It's because we realize that an oligarchy does not a sustainable economy make. We realized it nearly 200 years ago. If the wizarding world weren't so resistant to change, the Consul Dissolute would have gone through by now."

Of all the lies he could have told me, this one seemed particularly outrageous. "Resistant to change," I repeat. "The Consul has been holding onto a disproportionate amount of economic power because magical society just _doesn't want_ them to give it up."

"Wizards are creatures of habit and tradition, Harry," he says, frowning. "Surely you've realized that. Why do you think we still wear the latest fashions of 1720's?"

I take a very long sip of brandy. It is amazing that he honestly thinks I would buy this. It leads to a much more interesting thought – what does this this lie imply about the truth.

A moment of silence passes between us. Eventually he says, "This isn't why I brought you here."

"And why did you bring me here?"

"I promised myself that I wouldn't let you leave the Manor until I had convinced you to come to the Moot. It's in three weeks."

I am about to tell him that I've already made up my mind, that I am definitely coming to the Moot, because at this point, knowing what I know, there's no real alternative – but before I can say anything to that effect, he sets his empty glass of brandy down and moves toward me. There is a very familiar expression on his face.

"I told myself I would make you promise."

He stands in front of the armchair, his knee against mine, and reaches down easily to thread his long fingers through my hair. My mouth gets a bit dry. I suddenly know what he's talking about.

"I thought you were saving yourself for marriage," I say.

"I am," he answers, voice dropped.

I am about to ask him what he means when, in one fluid movement, he drops down in front of the chair onto his knees.

The sight of Draco Malfoy on his knees in front of my spread thighs is just about as intensely arousing as I would have anticipated it to be. His hand has moved from my hair and trails down my shoulder and chest.

"Promise me you'll be at the Moot," he mutters.

"Fuck," is all I can manage. He tugs deftly at the hem of my trousers, but his eyes stay trained on mine. He has my cock springing free before long, and the rush of cool air on hot skin has me shivering.

His gaze momentarily leaves my face and lands on my cock, and fuck, he looks just about as hungry as I feel.

"Promise me you'll be at the Moot," he repeats. He wraps his hand around the base and my hips jerk.

"J-just to be clear," I stammer, "you are offering to suck my cock in exchange for me agreeing to go to a political summit."

His hand moves in slow, even strokes. My head falls back and I buck up into the silk that is his palm. "That is precisely what I am offering, yes."

"Seems like a lopsided deal," I say through my teeth. "I am clearly making out like a bandit in this scenario."

"I wouldn't say that," he answers. His other hand joins in, dragging a strangled groan out of me. "Like I said, Potter, I've been wanting to do this to you since we were sixteen and hating each other."

A flash of hot, wet tongue on the head and fuck fuck fuck fuck—

"_Christ_, Malfoy."

"Do you promise?" he asks, voice tense. "Please promise. I've never wanted anything quite so badly as I want to suck your cock—"

"_Yes_. Fuck, Malfoy, _yes_, I promise—!"

There's more to the sentence, or at least I thought there was, but my mind blanks white when I suddenly feel his mouth around my cock. I scramble for my wand and throw up a few fast locking spells before letting it fall to the floor and knotting my hands in his hair.

I can tell that Malfoy is, indeed, a virgin – there's not a lot of finesse in his movements, but the exquisite heat of his mouth and what is frankly an astonishing amount of enthusiasm more than makes up for it. The wet pressure of his tongue traces the shaft, his hands tend to the places his mouth can't reach, and _fuck_, I am in so much trouble, Malfoy could get me to agree to _anything_ with this in his corner, he could get me to firebomb the Ministry, assassinate Shacklebolt—

Malfoy makes this gorgeous little whimpering sound and my vision tunnels and nothing that feels this good should be legal – he moves faster, the head of my cock nudges at the back of his throat and oh Christ I'm not going to last, there's no way—

"Malfoy—" My voice is strangled, my hands grip more tightly at his hair. He must get the meaning because he quickens his pace, that impossible heat moves faster, my vision goes white and stars explode behind my eyes as Draco fucking Malfoy brings me off to yet another mind-bending orgasm.

I come in pulsing waves into his mouth and he keeps up his movements for every last one. By the time I am no longer blinded and deafened from pleasure, he is pulling off slowly, lower lip shiny with come, neck and upper chest flushed.

I can tell he hasn't come, mostly because of the way he's trembling as though from exertion.

"Fuck," I laugh. Draco Malfoy has sucked my cock. Why not? It's not as if my life could get any more fucking bizarre. "You want me to return the favor?"

He hesitates a moment, then, to my surprise, shakes his head.

"Marry me," he says, "and then you can do whatever you want with me."

And the worst part about it is that I know that offer is starting to work. Despite the lies and the power grabbing and the sheer absurdity, I am becoming more and more certain that I would do just about anything to have my way with Draco Malfoy.


	7. An Unexpected Turn

Of all the things that could have been around that last corner, I can safely say that I never would have anticipated—

"Neville?"

The first thing I notice is that he looks fantastic – broad-shouldered and sturdy, dressed excellently with a button-up and bright scarlet tie. He looks up at me from a pile of parchments on the table and starts.

"Harry?" he answers. "Wow. I mean, Draco said – but you actually—?"

Silence lapses between us. It's awkward. I have a feeling that he's remembering, as much as me, the fact that I never showed up to his wedding, despite the invitation. It had been a poorly-timed event insofar as it was set three weeks after my divorce.

"It's good to see you," he says, and he sounds like he means it. "It's been ages."

"It has," I return. I want to feel something more than I do. Don't get me wrong, it is good to see him, good to know he's obviously doing well, but talking to him feels like trying on an old jumper that hasn't fit in years. It fills you with warm memories and nostalgia, but you can't shake the nagging sense of having lost.

"I almost didn't believe Draco when he said you were finally starting to come around to your inheritance," he says. He gestures toward the chair opposite of the one in which he'd been sitting – we are outside London, in the building specifically reserved for the Consul and related personnel – and I slowly sink into it. "I'd half-convinced myself you'd ignore it forever."

"Well," I answer, "Malfoy is extremely persuasive."

Neville chuckles. "Yeah, I get what you mean."

I think of him dragging a promise off the tip of my cock and answer, "I really don't think you do. He's somehow managed to make me think marrying him might be a worthwhile investment."

"Ha! I heard about that."

Christ, how many people knew about this already?

"It's a fantastic idea," he says at once, sounding almost eager. "You two are a great match."

Neville, too? Was I the only person on the planet who realized how ridiculous it was? "Was it the years of mutual hatred that convinced you?"

"He's more of a match for you than anyone else," Neville says. "He's likely the only one alive who can really keep you in check. Besides, combining your Houses would be a huge step in the right direction for the political landscape."

"So everyone seems to be telling me," I say. "I remain highly skeptical."

Neville cants his head to the side. "I thought you said he'd nearly convinced you."

_By making me realize how desperately I want to fuck him,_ I nearly say, but don't. Instead, I say, "It's complicated."

It's at that moment it occurs to me— "Malfoy said we'd be meeting another Consul member – is that—?"

"House Longbottom," Neville says, grinning.

"Damn." I'd never had any idea.

"Wasn't as well-prepared as other scions," he continues, "but my Gran did the best she could. I've still never really felt like a Consulate."

"Nonsense, you've done a fine job," says an all-too-familiar voice from behind, and I turn in time to see Malfoy gliding into the room, adjusting the sleeves of his robe

"Draco," Neville says, sounding genuinely glad to see him. "How are you?"

"Splendid! How's Hannah?"

"Good, all things considered. Still angry about agreeing to the whole pregnancy thing, but it's nothing foot rubs and balm can't mitigate."

Neville's wife is pregnant, apparently. For a moment I am upset that no one informed me before I remember that there isn't really anyone around to tell me.

"We should have dinner again soon," Draco says, and Christ, are they actually friends?

"We absolutely should."

"Didn't you bully Neville for nearly seven years?" I ask before I can stop myself.

The question brings the conversation to a painful, grinding halt. They both look at me, expressions varying degrees of uncomfortable.

Neville is the first to speak: "I've managed to let the past go," he says, and I frown.

Malfoy clears his throat. "We should get to work," he decides. "We have a lot of ground to cover if we're going to prep Harry for the Moot."

* * *

><p>And then three hours of complicated legal jargon happens.<p>

It's not that it's not important, or even that it's uninteresting, it's just that it's so bloody _dense_. Familiarizing myself with the structures and systems of the Consul and the mechanics of the Moot turns out to be frustrating and exhausting, By the time we call it quits, night has fallen, and through the windows of the Consulate building, faded rags of twilight glow feebly against the hazy dome of light that is London.

"That was awful," I say.

"Do you want me to go out first?" Neville asks.

"Would you mind? There's bound to be more than usual."

"More what than usual?" I ask.

"It's fine," Neville answers. "It'll give you two a bit of a buffer; you'll need it."

"Buffer from what?"

"You'll see," Neville laughs, moving through the door that leads down a hallway and into the lobby.

"Journalists," Malfoy supplies once he's gone.

It takes everything in me not to groan out loud. "Journalists? How the hell do they know we're here?"

"Any time two or more members of the Consul meet at the Consul building, it's legally a pre-Moot," he answers. "It will be mostly political correspondents; just let me do the talking."

There's a tension headache building up between my temples. "How long do we have to wait?"

"They usually don't keep you for longer than twenty minutes," Malfoy answers, shrugging and moving toward the window to lean on the sill. He is awash in moonlight, giving his near-silver hair an ethereal glow. He is far nicer to look at than he has any right to be. He rolls one shoulder as if trying to work out an ache.

"I really don't want to deal with them."

"It will be fine," he insists. "Calm down."

"Are you sure there isn't some way I could talk you into sneaking out the back?"

"You know, if you're going to be a permanent member of the Consul, this will be something you'll have to learn to deal with."

My mouth twists. The outer edges of his body are silvered, and my eyes trace the shallow hills and valleys along his torso and hips.

"Neville thinks we should get married."

He turns back toward me, and even with his back to the moonlight I can still make out the impossible silver of his eyes.

"Of course he does," he returns. "He's got a good head for politics."

He's still rubbing at his apparently achy shoulder. I close the gap between us and brush his hand aside to grip the area and knead it. Malfoy releases a low, appreciative hum and his head falls back, exposing the long lines of his throat.

"For the record," I say, "I still remain unconvinced that giving even more economic power to House Malfoy is in any possible way a good idea."

"You know that's not what it's about," he says, sounding like he wants to be more angry but distracted by the way I'm kneading at the muscles of his shoulder. "Besides, it wouldn't be adding to House Malfoy."

I raise an eyebrow. "It wouldn't?"

"I'd be the one who'd carry the heir," he explains, "so it would technically be the Malfoy estate that becomes the Black estate."

This raises several questions, but one of them screams more loudly than the rest.

"You'd – you'd _carry the heir?_"

"Did I not mention that?" His voice is a calm, almost distracted foil to my sudden alarm. "I'm an ingravesci."

"A what?"

"A genetic quirk amongst some pureblood lines," he says. "With a few simple potions, I'm capable of pregnancy."

Even after all these years, the Wizarding World was still capable of startling the ever-loving fuck out of me, apparently.

"Don't stop," he whines, shrugging his shoulder. Distractedly, I continue the massage, letting my other hand join in.

It seems ridiculous for a moment. Malfoy, pregnant? I look down at him and try to picture it. Picture him, pointy and pale and thin as ever, but with a swollen stomach, hands resting demurely on the weight of another life inside him – an heir, a child, Christ, _our child_. Draco Malfoy would be willing to _carry a child for me_.

I swallow. I have no explanation for why I find the idea so intensely compelling, or why, all of a sudden, I want it so desperately.

"You would carry our child," I say, not sure if it's a statement or a question.

He opens his eyes, apparently distracted from the massage by my tone. "Of course I would," he answers. "The seats on the Consul are passed down hereditarily. We would have to conceive so there would be succession."

It's a bit hard to speak. "Ginny and I—" I say, but I falter halfway through. "Before the divorce, we wanted – _I_ wanted—"

Desperately, I wanted. It was all I had ever wanted. All I still want.

He wets his lips, presses a hand to my chest. I'm sure he can feel my hastening heartbeat. For one more reason, Malfoy has never seemed so incredibly perfect.

"You can still," he says.

"Is that why you're saving yourself for marriage?" I ask. My voice is a bit lower than I'd intended it to be. "If I fucked you right now, is there a chance you'd end up pregnant?"

He doesn't seem to know how to respond for a minute, but I can see him swallow, see his pupils dilate.

"Accidental impregnation of an ingravesci is rare," he answers slowly, "but not unheard of."

_Christ_.

My hands drop from his shoulder and ghost down his sides. I should not find this so impossibly alluring, but I do. By rights it should send me running, but it doesn't. Somehow, it makes me want him even more. Makes me desperate.

And all of a sudden, Malfoy is kissing me. If there is some part of me that realizes this is the first time we've actually kissed, despite everything else we'd done, it is drowned out by the deafening static of wanting him so badly it physically hurts. I tangle my hands in his hair and kiss him back, hoping to somehow devour him whole.

He groans heavily against my mouth. "We could get pregnant right away," he says, "if that's what you wanted."

En lieu of answering, I pick him up around the waist and carry him over to the table we'd been sitting at moments ago and start clawing at the clasps on his robe with one hand and opening my own with the other. Malfoy squirms and shrugs his way out of the robe to help.

"I've always wanted children," he says, and the moment his chest is exposed I bend down and start kissing it, wetly and ferociously, and Malfoy keens and arcs off the table against my mouth. "Harry—!"

It takes everything in me not to physically rip away the trousers. For how desperately I pull them open there might actually be some damage to the fabric. But the prize is there – I hadn't yet seen Malfoy naked, and—

"Christ, Malfoy, you should not be allowed to be this gorgeous."

He really is – all long limbs and smooth skin with unobtrusive muscles. My hands drag down his hips, his thighs. His cock is gorgeous, thin and elegant like the rest of him, and as I nudge apart his legs—

"Harry—"

"I need to fuck you," I say, somehow, despite the fact that my voice is strangled.

"Then marry me," Malfoy pants.

I grind my teeth. "I need to fuck you more than I need to _breathe_, Malfoy." I can see his opening, furled and tight, and _Christ_ to be the first one, to stake an irreversible claim on this exquisite specimen – I slide a hand up along his thigh and press my thumb to his entrance—

"Hnn_hhaaah_—!" His body jerks reactively to the touch. "Then marry me before you choke to death!"

Of _course_ he's really doing this. Why _wouldn't_ he do this? I've never needed anything so desperately in my life than to spread him open and fuck him until I forget my name, but he has to stick his bloody guns—

I bend down over him, kiss him savagely, and thrust against the length of his cock with my own. The sound of strangled pleasure he makes is nearly worth being driven mad with wanting. I press into him firmly, fuck slowly against his cock at first, then with more speed. Malfoy slowly falls apart under me, hands clawing at my back, body bucking frantically.

"Harry – Merlin, Harry – I can't—"

I kiss him again to muffle his moaning on the off-chance one of the reporters gets too close. Despite the fact that I may actually go insane without fucking him, the sensation of my cock sliding along his is exquisite in its own right, and with the brutal, electric passion of the scene, I know I won't be lasting long. Only Malfoy can do this to me. Make me this raw, this desperate.

"I c-can't—" He's grabbing me tigther. I can see the lines of his body strain. And I know what he means. I'm right there with him. "I'm—"

He comes first, and the sound he makes should not be legal. He bucks and jerks and I can feel his come on my stomach and fuck this is so good, I sink my teeth into his neck and I am ripped open with the force of my own climax, burning up and collapsing.

A few seconds or possibly fifty years pass, and then I feel him kiss me, sleepily, dazedly, and Malfoy is a far better kisser than should be allowed. And something so profoundly and fundamentally wrong feels wonderful and uncomplicated, and I wonder just how fucked up that makes me.


	8. A Certain Reluctance

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the sort of person who stays quiet in the face of adversity. I suppose I must have had enough of that during those first eleven years of psychological abuse, and when the war happened, there wasn't any part left of me that could be patient and calm when bad things happened.

The difference with this is that there's nothing _I_ can do about it.

When there was a prophecy, a villain, a clear objective, I didn't have to sit idly by. I had to trade in my comfort and my security, but I could fight back. I could do _something_. _Anything_.

But the days tick by, and the more I learn about the Consul, the Moot, about the entire magical government, I fall deeper into this sucking pit of impotent rage and simmering frustration.

The entire system is just so fucking broken.

The amount of money in government, not just in the Consul but in the Wizengamot and the Ministry, is nothing short of staggering. Politicians and their votes are regularly bought out, elections are so badly gerrymandered that they are almost useless, and change is slow to come if it ever comes at all.

And I want to shout at it, to shake it by the shoulders until something happens, but the government isn't a thing you can yell at.

There's just Malfoy, who is so aggravatingly sexy and perfect that it has become genuinely upsetting.

"Try to focus," he says, and I nearly snap my quill in half. "The Moot is in three days. If you want to participate meaningfully you have to know these things."

He is patient. He is a good teacher. He is thoughtful and intelligent. He is quite possibly the best-dressed person in every room he walks into. He gets desperately hot over the idea of sucking my cock.

And I _hate_ him for it. I hate everything about him. Why couldn't he just be the obnoxious bastard from our Hogwarts years? At least then it would be easier to justify this anger.

"At what percentage does a vote pass the Consul?" he asks me. The usefulness of his quizzing has been steadily declining since we started two hours ago. Right now all I can do is hate the shitty fucking government and Malfoy and everything else.

"Can you really call them votes?" I break the quill in half, just because I can.

"Harry," he says.

"I mean, it's not like every single member of the Consul isn't almost completely controlled by their own economic fucking interests and not the will of the people."

"Maybe we should call it a night," he says.

The Malfoy Manor's library is open and airy and I can hear his footsteps echo on the wood floor as he moves around the table to gather up all the books and parchments.

"Surely we shouldn't even do it the service of calling it a government," I say, balling up the paper on which I had been taking notes with one hand. "It barely governs as it is. The fucking Ministry can barely execute the law, the Wizengamot is corrupt as hell—"

"You think I don't know that?" Malfoy stops gathering up all the books and puts his hands on his hips. "You think the entire Consul hasn't known for centuries? We're _working_ on it, Harry, but these things are worse than pulling teeth!"

"Oh, yes, the poor Consul, burdened by the self-awareness of their vast economic power!" I snap, standing up so suddenly that my chair clatters to the floor. "They _want_ to give up their economy-driving wealth, really they do, but that grumpy old voting public just won't let them!"

Malfoy frowns at me. "You think I'm lying?"

_Yes, obviously,_ I want to scream. _You've been lying to me from the start._ Does he really think he's fooled me? Does he think I haven't seen from the start how wrong and broken everything about it is? How preposterous, how objectively implausible?

When I don't answer, he says, "If you think I'm lying, then why are you still _here?_"

"A combination of moral compulsion and a nearly overpowering desire to _fuck you into the floor_."

The answer seems to startle him, and I can see him straighten. He clears his throat a red flush rises along his neck.

"I don't think you really mean that," he says. "I think you're just angry at the situation and directing it at me."

"What's wrong, Malfoy?" I ask, circling the table toward him. "Not happy with the truth? I thought you wanted me to fuck you into the floor."

He doesn't move away. Quicksilver eyes simmer and meet mine, but he doesn't answer.

I knot a hand in his hair and tug, exposing the delicate lines of his throat. Malfoy keens and both his hands fist in the front of my robe.

"In fact, I recall you gasping it at me while your hand was around my cock," I say.

He bucks his hips forward, pressing into mine. "Immaterial," he answers through his teeth.

I bend down and bite soundly on his throat, a movement which makes his body jerk against me. My other hand snakes around his waist to hold him steady. I only withdraw the bite to answer, "It's mad that I am honestly considering marriage for the opportunity to fuck you, but what about my life isn't mad these days?"

"Your life isn't—"

I don't let him answer. I move forward and we both stumble toward the divan against the wall. He collapses onto it and I go right back to biting-sucking-gnashing at his throat as I rip at his robes. Malfoy shudders and groans and starts returning the favor.

"I liked hearing you admit it," I say into the skin of his neck as the layers of robe are pulled open one by one. "I loved hearing you say it. Hearing you want it."

He groans again, more loudly. "Harry, Merlin—"

"Turnabout is fair play, Malfoy." Losing patience with the rest of his clothes, I use a quick, wandless spell to disrobe him. "If you're going to make me want it so badly, I should think I'm entitled to return fire."

"Harry…"

Shit, he looks fucking edible, all sprawled out under me and vulnerable. I rake my fingernails down his stomach, drawing a shudder out of him.

"Fuck," Malfoy says, apparently realizing what he's gotten himself into.

I keep moving down his body, past acres of smooth skin, past his narrow hips and slim cock. I curl one hand firmly but not overtight around the shaft, and then haul one leg over my shoulder.

"Harry—"

"Relax, Malfoy," I say. "I know you're saving yourself for marriage."

A few quick charms for cleaning and protection later, and I close my mouth around the sensitive ring of muscle. The reaction it rips from him—

"_Fuck!_" His back arcs off the divan, hands scrabble at the cushions. "Fuck – oh, Merlin – Harry—!"

My own cock feels like it could cut glass at the moment, but I keep my focus razor sharp. I want to hear him say it, _beg_ for it, want it as desperately and thoroughly as I do, because I am done suffering through it alone. I press my tongue firmly into him, a few shallow inches with an upward curl, and Malfoy's entire body shakes and writhes.

"_Harry,_" he keens, both hands knotting in my hair. "Yes – fuck yes yes yes_yesyesyes_."

Virgin, indeed. He is oversensitive, supernova-hot, utterly responsive to every movement of my tongue. My hand around his cock is mostly still, because I have a feeling he will be coming around my tongue with nothing else.

Malfoy is babbling nonsense with words like "good" and "yes" and "Merlin" thrown in and he is writhing and bucking up against my mouth. I work him open, cock almost painfully hard against my robes, and when he is slick and loose enough I withdraw, wet two fingers, and push them inside.

The sound he makes nearly had _me_ coming.

I fuck him with my fingers and Malfoy looks like he is about to pass out but for how violently he is moving.

"If you ask me," I say lowly, moving my fingers faster, "I will do whatever you like."

Malfoy sob-moans. I can feel him starting to draw tight around my fingers. "I… I – fuck – Harry—"

Watching him like this is somehow the most impossibly arousing and incredibly painful thing I've ever had the privilege of seeing. He is all taut limbs and raw sexuality, head thrown back, eyes screwed shut, edible, desperate, perfection.

"Do you want me to fuck you, Malfoy?" I ask him lowly.

"I – I—"

"Just say the word."

He keeps trying to start the sentence – _I – I – I—_ but before he can get it out, he goes quiet, then all of a sudden quite loud—

"Hnnhhaa—!"

And he is seizing up around me and coming so beautifully on my fingers and over his stomach that my hand leaves his cock, rips open my own robe, and grabs at my own because fuck I cannot take it I really just can't – one pump, two, and I am coming right with him, drunk on the expression, striping his cock and pelvis with my come as he keeps rocking his hips on my fingers.

It takes longer than before for me to come down. I work my cock until every last shuddering wave has passed, until I've emptied myself onto him, until Malfoy is limp underneath me and panting from exertion.

And somehow, after such an intensely satisfying orgasm, I still want him. Still want every part of him. Still angry. Still hating him just as much as I want to fuck him open.


	9. A Falling Apart

"We're just about ready for you, Messrs. Malfoy, Mr. Potter," says the voice from the Floo. It's a demure mezzo that doesn't come close to masking the dull rumble of a backdrop.

"Your collar is crooked, Draco," Malfoy Senior says, and Draco sighs and moves to the mirror to adjust it.

"I still can't believe it's causing all this fuss," I say. I am in a new dress robe this time, at Draco's insistence. It fits much better, and on a good day I'd be tempted to say it's flattering, but at the moment I'm too angry.

"It's just pomp and politesse," Draco says, smoothing the collar. "Intermixed with tradition to make it particularly longevous."

"All we're doing is going into the building," I say. "They can't even follow us inside."

"I'm sure complaining about it will make all the thousands of reporters go away," Malfoy Senior says, voice clipped, as he moves to Draco's side to readjust Draco's adjustment of the collar.

I growl in the back of my throat. I hate that he's right.

"Are you sure about this, Draco?" he asks his son, resting his hands on his shoulders and looking sideways at me. "Arriving with him will get people talking."

"They already are," Draco answers distractedly, straightening his tie.

"Talking _more_," he continues. "You would save yourself a lot of media attention if you were to let him arrive afterwards."

"If I let media attention scare me away from things, both our lives would be quite different."

Malfoy Senior sighs, looking put-upon.

"_Presenting His Lordship Lucius Abraxas Malfoy,_" booms a particularly loud voice from the Floo, "_Earl of Wiltshire and Master of House Malfoy—_"

"That's your cue," interrupts the mezzo.

"_—and his son, Young Lord Draco Arcturus Malfoy, heir apparent. Presenting Mr. Harry Potter, Master of House Black._"

"Come on," Draco says, and I reluctantly move toward the hearth.

Malfoy Senior is the first to step through, then Draco, then myself. This particular Floo connection has none of the wildness of the public routes; stepping through it is as simple as stepping through a door. A burst of flame, a rush of air, and—

The sudden noise and light and color can only accurately be described as a detonation. It takes me a moment to adjust.

We are in a wide, massive marble room – I recognize it as the foyer of the Consul building, but only because of the memorable ceiling, because it is otherwise unrecognizable. It is packed with people – not just reporters, but onlookers in street clothes – and it is a sea of shouted questions and bursting flash pots.

All at once, so all-consumingly that it makes me dizzy, I _hate_ this place and everything about it.

"Lord Malfoy," shouts one reporter louder than the rest as we make our way down the path carved in the crowd, "are you optimistic about the Muggle Religious Rights bill coming before the Consul this Moot?"

"I am," Malfoy Senior answers, so unflappable that it is mystifying, as he glides down the aisle so the reporter has to keep up. "I am sure the Consul will see it as a fundamental right that has gone overlooked for too long."

Bloody hell, people are _cheering_. They are whistling and clapping as we pass, like we're bloody superstars. Do these people just not _know_ how broken the government is? Do they not understand how completely fucked the system has become?

"Mr. Malfoy," says another reporter, who hurries to catch up with Draco, "I notice that you arrived with Mr. Potter."

"Yes," Draco answers, smiling mildly.

"Sources have confirmed that the two of you have been spending quite a lot of time together," the reporter continues. "House Malfoy has been looking to combine its estate for nearly four generations now, and given that you are an ingravesci and an heir apparent, a marriage between you could achieve that. Would you care to remark upon the rumors that you are considering engagement?"

"I would not care to remark upon those rumors," he returns, "but I applaud your ceaseless optimism in asking."

"What about your, Mr. Potter?" the reporter continues, walking backwards to get to me. "Mr. Longbottom has recently confirmed that the two of you—"

I abruptly smack her Quick Quotes Quill out of the air with my hand and bare my teeth at her. She makes a yelping sound and tries to catch it, and the parchment, whose levitation spell crumbles and sends them falling.

Draco shoots me a glare over his shoulder, and I glare right back, because does he expect me not to be angry? Not to be disgusted by everything about this? By the enthusiasm and adulation for a desperately broken system? I grind my teeth and clench my fists and try to control my ever-mounting desire to burn this building to the ground.

Behind us, the Mistress of House Morgan arrives, sufficiently distracting the reporters from us. We make our way past the cheering crowds and thrown flowers, past a pair of double doors lined with aurors, and into the council room.

It is a large, ornate room, with a long table lined with chairs and well-lit with dangling chandeliers. Many of the Consul have already arrived and are standing in small clusters around the table, talking and laughing.

God, they look absolutely hateful. They look like the sorts of impossibly rich, out-of-touch business tycoons who lay off ten thousand employees and then pat themselves on the back for their genius cost-saving strategies.

They _are_, my mind supplies, and it fills me with even more anger.

"Lucius!" says one of them, a portly woman with graying hair and a gaudy periwinkle robe.

"Matilda," he answers, kissing her cheek lightly when they're close enough. "My goodness, are you getting younger?"

"Darling, flattery will get you everywhere! How have you been? How's Narcissa?"

Malfoy Senior responds, but I can't hear him. There is a ringing in my ears that had been ignorable at first but is getting ever louder. I watch as Malfoy Senior hobnobs and laughs at unfunny jokes, as Draco engages a young Mistress of some estate in Yorkshire and they trade stories about investment, as they sip tea and eat overpriced biscuits and are generally just the _worst people on the planet_.

The disgust is visceral. I am physically nauseous, burning with unspoken anger, ready to snap—

"Mr. Potter! Glad to see you could join us!"

My head spins around. It's some fat, awful, disgusting older man who's balding and looks like the sort of person who gorges himself on enough food to feed a starving family for a year.

"We haven't had the Master of House Black in attendance since 1979!"

He claps me on the shoulder and _no, absolutely not_—

"Don't touch me!"

The man takes a half-step back, looking startled. "Easy, my lad, I meant no offense."

"This whole fucking _thing_ is offensive!" I say, not realizing how loud I'm being until a few people nearby look over at me. "It's disgusting – every single one of you—"

"Harry—" says Draco from nearby, but I am not interested in hearing him.

"Parading around, _owning_ half the fucking economy, then acting like you should have _any_ say in government! Was being the richest bastards in the entire fucking country not enough—?"

"_Harry,_" he says, grabbing me by the shoulder, but I slap his hand away. I am so angry that I am physically shaking, that the edges of my vision are rimmed in red.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this!" I say, only getting louder. "These people don't need any more fucking power, Malfoy, they need bloody muzzles!"

"This didn't take long," sighs Malfoy Senior from the side of the room.

"_Outside,_" Malfoy snarls, grabbing me again by the arm and hauling me out, and I would fight it but I have never wanted to be out of a room so badly.

"I _never should have come,_" I shout, and we make it into an adjoining siting room. Malfoy closes the door loudly. "This isn't my world; I can't be around these – these fucking _bottom-feeders_, these _corporate mouthpieces_—"

"Those corporate mouthpieces are members of the Consul, like it or not!" he snaps back, spinning around to face me. "Show some fucking decorum for once in your life!"

"_Decorum?_ Nothing about this is worthy of decorum; it's _revolting!_ It's corporate oligarchy given form! I wouldn't even be here if you hadn't been stringing me along these past weeks!"

Malfoy's hands clench and unclench at his sides. "I have _not_ been stringing you along. You're oversimplifying and blowing this way out of proportion!"

"I should never have agreed!" I bellow at him, hands shaking, blood pounding in my ears, "I should have let this entire fucking economy collapse, at least then we could build something decent from the ashes!"

"Harry, for Merlin's sake, you're acting like we're all making active attempts to destroy the Wizarding World!" he shouts back at me. "I've told you again and again, we've been working for _centuries_ to mold the government into something fairer and more stable—"

"_Bullshit_, you have!"

"_Why are you so convinced I am lying to you?_"

I laugh, bitterly. "The usual reasons, Malfoy," I snarl. "Because things never change. Because you're still exactly the same person you were back in Hogwarts, manipulative and lying, who will do whatever vile thing it takes to get your way!"

Malfoy recoils as though slapped. It raises a savage pleasure in me to see it. _Finally_, he is being called on his _shit_.

"Did you honestly expect me to believe your horeshit story, Malfoy? That combining Houses Black and Malfoy wouldn't be fucking disastrous? That from the _start_, this wasn't about you coming after the money and the political sway?"

"Harry—" he begins, voice quiet, eyes wide, but I am not done talking.

"And maybe you do want me to fuck you, and maybe you would carry a child for me, but don't think for a _second_ that I ever really bought that you had any actual affections for me! You would never stoop so low! It was always about _this_, about _money and power_, because that is _who you are and all you will ever be!_"

When I have finally shouted myself hoarse, the following silence is deafening. I am breathing hard, still trembling with frustration and anger, but Malfoy is unnaturally still.

He is staring up at me with some unidentifiable expression. The quiet lapses for several more seconds, before—

"Fuck you."

"Right back at you."

"No, _really_," he snarls. There's a subtle trembling in his voice. "_Fuck you_, Harry Potter."

He shoves past me. I do not turn to watch him leave, but I hear the clattering of the door behind him.

My hands won't stop shaking. My heart won't stop slamming in the side of my throat. Fuck Malfoy. Fuck the Moot. Fuck the Consul and the whole of the magical government. I am done. Done with this, done with everything.

I storm out through the other door leading into a garden to get out, to get anywhere, to get away from this entire disgusting world.


	10. A Sorry State

"What the _fuck_ did you do?"

In a list of things I want to hear at this particular moment, Ginny's shrill voice does not even crack the top 100.

Perhaps if I ignore her, she'll go away. I finish off the last mouthful of my beer, which is by now warm and mostly backwash.

"Harry Potter, you absolute trainwreck, are you galactically incapable of going out in public and _not_ causing some huge scandal? Don't think I've forgotten about the time you punched that poor reporter."

I stick to my guns on the ignoring-her plan. I stay studiously facing the window. By now the sun has risen, and slashes of golden light illuminate the dust in the kitchen.

When I don't answer, Ginny storms over and grabs the now empty beer bottle for my hand.

"_Harry Potter Lord Black abandons Moot,_" she says, quoting the headline of the paper that she shoves in my face, "_secret engagement secretly broken?_ Harry, for Merlin's sake, I thought you were starting to get past this shit!"

I'm not sure what shit she is referring to specifically, though it barely matters. Honestly, I'm far too drunk to analyze anything she says with scrutiny.

"Yeah, well," I say, "guess what? You were wrong."

"You were _going outside_," she says, slapping the paper down in front of me on the table. "You were actually talking to people, doing things – for the first time in months, you actually gave a fuck about something! How the hell did you reverse course so quickly?"

"Fuck off," I say rather than answering.

"I'm not going to fuck off, Harry, so you might as well just talk to me! How did this happen?"

"I am _amazed,_" I say, though I'm slurring somewhat, "that people are so _surprised_."

She glares at me. When she doesn't counter, I continue.

"I fought a fucking war to end this shit," I say. "Now it's worse than ever—"

"Like there's a chance in hell this has anything to do with the government!" she interjects suddenly. "This has _nothing_ to do with the Consul and _everything_ to do with you and your fucking inability to get over yourself!"

"That does _not_—"

"It absolutely fucking does! Why do you think I haven't moved out of Grimmauld Place?"

I nearly make a crack about her party-all-night-and-also-all-day lifestyle not be conducive to making rent money, but I'm a little too drunk to manage it before she carries on:

"It's because I've been scared half to death that you'd just let yourself starve to death never getting out of bed!"

I want to tell her she's wrong, but she isn't wrong. Still—

"Trust me, I'm better off this way."

"Harry, you were out of the house!" she says, pulling the adjacent kitchen chair over and sitting down beside me to grab my arms. "And past, that you were passionate about something for the first time in months! You even had an S.O.!"

I yank my arms quite abruptly out of her grasp. "Draco Malfoy is _not_ and _never was_ my S.O.," I say, a bit more loudly than I had intended to. "He cared much more for my inheritance and political sway!"

"Bullshit," she says at once, glaring at me.

I am far too drunk to argue something like this, but also far too drunk not to. "Are we talking about the same Draco Malfoy? Ex-Death Eater, Slytherin to the core?"

"I saw him when he came over, Harry," she says. "He looked at you like a man in a desert looks at an oasis! He was obviously mad about you!"

"He was _not_—" I begin, before memories start flashing before my mind's eye. _Like a man in a desert looks at an oasis._ It was such a descriptive simile and I knew so precisely what she meant that I pictured it at once. The look of open-hearted earnest excitement, vulnerability and adoration. Hadn't I seen that on him before? Back in the Malfoy Manor, from across every room? Hadn't I seen it just before he kissed me that first time in the library?

I shake the memories angrily from my mind and set my face. I'm drunk, I remind myself, and have no idea what I'm talking about.

"I refuse to take romantic advice," I say, "from a woman who can't form an emotional connection that lasts longer than a one-night stand."

She bares her teeth at me, shoves at my shoulder. "Fuck you, Harry!" she says, sounding like she means it. "I'm living my life the way I want to live it for the first time, and you don't get to judge me for it!"

I growl in the back of my throat.

"Draco Malfoy was mad for you," she snaps, "and you were mad about him! And if you hadn't gone and fucked it up, you might still have him!"

"I don't _want_ him," I lie, loudly enough to almost make myself believe it.

"You are self-destructive and profoundly fucking depressed, Harry," she snaps, shoving at my shoulder again. "If you don't realize that soon, you're going to burn every bridge you have left! _Go talk to Draco._"

"Fuck you," I say, standing up with a great scrape of my chair. "I'm leaving."

"You can't just keep hiding from the things that mean something to you!"

But she is wrong, she _must_ be wrong. It didn't mean anything. Nothing means anything. The whole thing meant nothing to me. The broken government is not my problem. Draco Malfoy is not my problem. I stumble to the hearth because I need to get out of this fucking house and away from my stupid ex-wife.

"_Go talk to Draco!_" she shouts just before the Floo spirits me away."

* * *

><p>"What the fuck did you <em>do?<em>"

I look over my shoulder. It's fucking Neville. What the fuck is _he_ doing here?

"Christ," I slur. "Can't a man drink alone in a bar at nine o'clock in the morning without being harassed?"

It takes me a moment to see – likely because of how spectacularly drunk I am – that Neville looks furious. He storms right up to my table.

"Aren't you supposed to be in the Moot?" I say. I intend to say it like a jeer, but as stated, I am already quite drunk.

"We're in recess for the rest of the day," he says. "Do you mind explaining why you fucking stormed out of it before it even started?"

"You know," I slur, "I expect Malfoy to defend it, but _you_ – you know as well as _I_ do what a sorry fucking state it's in!"

Neville looks like he might actually punch me. To be honest, I wouldn't be that angry if he did.

"What do you want me to say, Harry?" he says. "That the government isn't perfect? Of course it isn't! We've got money in the system, sure, but so does virtually every other government on the face of the planet! At least the Consul is _self-aware!_ At least we're taking steps to fix it!"

I scoff. "Yes, I'm sure you're eager to get rid of all that power—"

"The members of the Consul will be economically powerful no matter what happens, Harry," he says. "It's not about power and never has been! It's about trying to keep the entire market from collapsing! Surely even you can admit that no one – even these mythically evil bloodsucking Consul members you've dreamed up – would want that!"

"Are you honestly trying to convince me that a bunch of wealthy pureblood families don't want to hold onto their political sway?" I challenge, though the words come out a bit run together.

"I'm trying to convince you of the fact that the world is not made up of binaries!" he shouts at me. "People aren't either pure-hearted ascetics or soulless capitalists! The truth is _complicated_, Harry, but we're doing everything we can! Our system isn't perfect, but it's kept us out of two global recessions so far, and we are constantly working to improve it!"

I think of Draco explaining how bigger Houses had more regulations, think of him eagerly explaining tax law to me, about all the anti-corruption laws that had been put in place over the years. I had assumed he was lying, but maybe—

I growl and shake my head.

"And by the way," Neville says, "just what the fuck did you do to Draco?"

I take an angry sip of my beer.

"Whatever it is you said to him, it absolutely wrecked him, Harry."

"I doubt it," I tell myself.

"You owe him a huge fucking apology; I've never seen him so distraught."

"You and fucking Ginny," I slur. "What is it with you trying to convince me of this shit?"

"When two people who _care_ about you, Harry, are shouting the same things at you, it is time to consider that perhaps they may have a point!"

The heel of my beer clatters against the table and I rise to my feet.

"Fine," I say. "I will prove it."

Neville narrows his eyes uncertainly at me.

"I will go talk to him and get this settled once and for all. And you will admit how wrong you are and _leave me the hell alone about it_."

"You're in no shape to Apparate," he says shortly, before producing his wand and taking what is by my estimation a little too much pleasure in the soberflame charm which, quite literally, burns the alcohol out of my system in one hot, unbearably painful burst.

"_Fuck!_"

"Now that you're sober, Harry, listen to me very closely." He slides the wand into his sleeve and when I lift my eyes, he is glaring back at me. "Draco is my _friend_ now, do you understand? And right now he is emotionally fragile. Say what you want to say, but if you go out of your way to hurt him like you did yesterday, I'll take a pound of fucking flesh."

I have some time responding. The soberflame is still burning away the last of my sleepy, alcohol-induced delirium, leaving me clearer, but feeling strangely upset. Now that I am able to think clearly, I am thinking about the government, about Malfoy, about everything, and my brain is still obstinately assuring me that they are wrong. They are wrong. They must be wrong. About this, about everything.

Right?


	11. A Devastating Clarity

As if to mark the day with a sense of ominous foreboding, when I arrive at the Malfoy Manor it is sheeting rain.

Granted, this is England, and there rarely needs to be a reason for it to rain, but this particular rain seems different. The raindrops are large and slow, and there is no wind, meaning that when they fall, they fall straight down, and if you stand still enough, you can avoid it landing anywhere but your head and shoulders.

I am not sure why I decide to Apparate outside the front door rather than taking the Floo. Perhaps I am somewhat concerned that the wards wouldn't let me in. It would certainly be less embarrassing to have an Apparation attempt rejected than to get trapped in the sooty darkness of the fireplace.

I stare up at the house and find that I am nervous. I wonder why.

The sudden and brutal sobriety has left me feeling quieted and strangely grim. For a while I don't move, I just stare up at the house and turn over everything that has been said to me in the past few hours – but I do not analyze it, merely replay it in my mind.

I wonder what it is I'll learn today. Whatever it is, it can't possibly be worse than this unbearable, crushing emptiness.

By the time I finally move forward and knock on the door, I am soaked through. It takes a moment for a house elf to answer the door (they're doubtlessly unaccustomed to guests arriving at the door), and as soon as it opens I am shown inside and dried off with a quick spell.

"Will Mr. Potter wait in the sitting room?" the house elf – I think her name is Dolly – asks, gesturing through a nearby door.

"Yeah," I answer. "Yes."

"Dolly will summon Master Malfoy," she says, bowing her large head and scurrying away.

I move into the siting room.

It is opulent but not gaudy, I notice – quite tasteful, as a matter of fact, and not something I would associate with the Malfoys. It is all done up in mahogany and blues, with a few portraits sleeping quietly in their frames.

I like it. I don't think I quite realized it before, despite having been here a number of times.

"No," says a voice from behind.

I turn. It's the wrong Malfoy.

I open my mouth to respond but once again stumble over the correct form of address. This time, "wotcher" strikes me as bad taste, though I suppose it was also in bad taste before, too.

"No," he says again, when I don't reply. "No, you may not see Draco."

"I…"

"He is not taking visitors," Malfoy Senior continues, voice icy. "Did my warning about ripping out your still-beating heart go straight through the void where your brain should be, Potter?"

"He…" I begin, haltingly, "he's upset."

"He's devastated." He moves forward, and despite the fact that he looks like he's about to rip my head off my shoulders, there is nary a hair out of place. "He was insulted in the cruelest possible way by a man to whom he was growing attached and had hopes to marry."

There is some feeble little part of me that still refuses to believe that Draco Malfoy actually cared for me, though I notice it is no longer rooted in feelings of anger, but unworthiness.

His words do not draw any physical reaction, save for a slowly spreading cold in the pit of my stomach.

"I didn't…"

"Didn't what?" he interjects. "Didn't mean to hurt him? That is very easy to say after the fact, Potter, but rather indefensible, don't you think? If you didn't mean to hurt him, perhaps you could have cut yourself off after questioning his moral compass."

I shut my eyes. The cold is growing ever wider.

"I am under no illusions that everyone in this family has made great and egregious mistakes, Potter," he continues, "but of all of us, Draco deserves the least blame. He was only a child, same as you. I would have expected more empathy."

"It seemed—"

Damn, my throat is tight. I feel like I can barely speak. I stand at the center of the room, head down, shoulders slumped. The emotion is finally starting to creep up on me, slithering out from the coldness in my stomach. My hands shake.

"The government, the Moot, the way he just fell into my life – they were all so desperately _wrong_."

"So you were keen to remind us," he answers. "Sit."

The command surprises me. I had half-expected him to throw me out. But when I look up, he is gliding across the room and sitting neatly on a nearby armchair, appearing to be perfectly serious.

I sit.

"You do not think the government is wrong. You do not think my son is a liar. You never have, if I were to wager a guess."

I have very little idea where he's going with this. "What—?"

"You will be silent and let me get through this point or you will bleed on the floor of my sitting room, Potter."

Right, well. I suppose no one could accuse him of not being protective enough.

Still, I stay quiet.

"Everything you are angry at is a scapegoat for a much larger issue," he says. "I would have had to have been blind not to see it. You are not _stupid_, Potter, despite evidence that would suggest otherwise. You know that ours is not a government more profoundly broken than any other. You know that Draco's offer at marriage made perfect political and economic sense. You know that his affections for you are genuine.

"You wonder why you were – and, to some degree, still are – convinced otherwise? Is it not possible, Potter," he continues, "that the most profound problem is not the world, itself, but how your mind is _perceiving_ it?"

Despite the fact that he is sitting back, one leg crossed over the other, I feel myself shrinking under his gaze. The coldness is starting to make me tremble throughout.

"I don't…"

"I know what depression is, Potter," he interjects. "I lived with it."

I clench and unclench my hands, shut my eyes.

"It is such an easy trap to fall into, for people like us," he says. "People who lived through so much senseless death and were then expected to pick up the pieces and continue as though our entire lives had not been upended. And I cannot imagine that a divorce would have made things any easier."

"I'm not—"

"Yes, you are."

Yes, I am. _God,_ I am. I am profoundly and desperately broken, and the sudden clarity is the worst thing I have ever felt.

I bend forward and knot my hands in my hair. How did it get this far?

"I am not blaming you for your condition, Potter," Malfoy Senior says, sounding almost gentle, "just your actions. This is why I warned you off my son from the start. I know – from _experience_, Potter, I _know_ – that having anything close to a meaningful relationship when the world is black-and-white is impossible."

"I don't know what to do." My voice comes out as more of a croak. "I don't – is there nothing—?"

I look up at him, hoping, desperately, perhaps stupidly, that there's something to be _done_. The self-awareness, the clarity – it has made me realize that I do not _want_ this. And past that, I _can't_ – I can't live like this, not anymore. I never really _could_.

Malfoy Senior is eyeing me.

"Good," he says, which surprises me. "There is hope, after all."

There must be some sign of confusion on my face, because he elaborates:

"As with so many things, the first step to overcoming depression is having the wherewithal to know and the courage to want better."

He rises from his armchair and goes to the mantelpiece, where there sits a small, tin box. He opens it and begins rifling through a small stack of business cards. A moment later, he produces one and turns to me.

"This is the card of a very talented therapist," he says.

I open my mouth, but find I do not know what to say – a therapist? Is that what I need? Would a therapist be even to make a dent in all the shit that brought me to this point?

"She is a Muggle," he continues, moving forward to hand me the card. "Not a popular field for magical kind, psychiatry. But she is married to a witch, so she will have all the necessary context to properly help you."

I lift one trembling hand to take the card. _Dr. Caroline Moore_ is embossed in golden script. It seems so alien.

"When a man is trapped in a hole," he says, "a priest will offer a prayer and a doctor will offer medication. A friend will jump down with him because they've been in this hole before and they know the way out.

"I trust the subtleties of metaphor aren't lost on you, Potter? I have been in this same hole," he continues. "_This_ is the way out."

I look up at him.

"Are you my friend in this metaphor?" I ask him, despite my better judgment and the mounting emotions threatening to rip me open.

Malfoy Senior raises an eyebrow at me, unimpressed.

"Clean up this mess you've made with my son and then we'll talk," he answers. "But first, get better. You're no good to anyone as you are now."

Perhaps I should be offended, but I know he's right. I look back down at the card, still shaking, still weak, still broken, still finding hope so desperately impossible.

But I force myself to hope anyway. There is no longer any other choice. I must hope, or I will be trapped in the hole forever.


	12. An Overdue Talk

So as it turns out, therapy is awful. As in genuinely and thoroughly awful. As in I can think of a variety of different things that would be less painful than therapy, and they involve razor wire and broken glass.

"We've made good progress today," says Dr. Moore, sounding pleased.

"Jesus Christ," I answer. I am so emotionally drained that all I want to do is curl up in bed and not talk to anyone for at least a week. "Good? You call that good?"

"You confronted yourself and your memories," she says. "That's good. Huge step for a first session."

"Could we go a bit slower, then?" I ask. "Because I have literally died and this is worse than that."

She laughs. "It will get easier," she promises me. "The goal isn't to make it stop hurting, just to lessen it, make it easier to manage. Definitionally, the more it happens, the better it is."

"I suppose I'll have to take your word for it." I briefly consider the fact that I have signed myself up to let a person build sandcastles in my brain. A terrifying prospect in its own right, without considering how painful it apparently has to be.

"That you can trust me enough to do so says volumes, Harry." She smiles at me and I have a hard time staying cross with her. "Will you do your assignment this weekend?"

God, the assignment. Apparently therapists can hand them out as much as professors. Some part of me had been hoping she'd forget about it.

"I'm just not sure it's a good idea – it's so soon—"

"I know," she says. "But that's when it's the most meaningful, the most impactful. Remember, no expectations, just an apology."

"Just an apology," I sigh. "And I absolutely _have_ to start with—"

"Yes," she answers at once.

"Brilliant."

"It won't go as badly as you're expecting," she tells me, and it's the hardest thing in the world to believe her. I cannot imagine that it could go anything but badly – because after what I put him through, how could I possibly come up with the right words to apologize to Draco Malfoy?

* * *

><p>And despite having a few days to think about those words, all half-formed monologues dry up the moment I arrive at the Consul building.<p>

Just being in this place fills me with an existential dread, though no longer for the same reasons as before. No more visceral disgust, just a residual, pulsing sort of fear, and echoing reminder of deeds done.

The Moot, so far as I can discern, is still in session but about to recess. Though there was plenty of fanfare surrounding the first day, this late in the discussions only draws the most dedicated and seasoned political reporters. All the major bills have been voted on, and only the trivial remain.

When the Consul members exit through the double doors two or three at a time, it's to scattered questions and a few rare bursts of fllashpots. I hang in the back and wait until I see him.

Seeing him, however, turns out to be a mistake, because he looks incredible. A fitted pinstripe suit under a handsome black robe, artfully tousled hair, thin smiles to the reporters.

And damn, I realize. _Damn_. The anger I felt is gone but that _wanting_ still remains, stronger than it was before. I still want him, still want to run my fingertips along the curve of his jaw, still want to breathe in his sweet-smelling hair.

I want him so badly it physically hurts, and that realization makes me more vulnerable than any apology ever could.

He answers some question about a magical creature bill, thanks the reporter and scans the room—

I can see the tenseness in his shoulders. Zero to rigid. Shoulders set, eyes focus. I meet his gaze for no other reason than I cannot look away.

He seems conflicted for a while, but after many of the reporters file away, notes taken and photos snapped, he slowly approaches, cautious and almost skittish, as though he is afraid I might strike out.

"Hi," I say, hoping to break the ice.

It doesn't work. He still looks wound-up and wary. "Hi," he answers.

"Can we talk?"

The concern only grows, but after a moment, he nods. "Yeah. Not here, though."

I want to soothe him, but I do not dare. I have no right to even touch him – _and_, Dr. Moore's voice rings in my ear, _he will have no compulsion to forgive you. Forgiveness is granted, not taken._

We move down a hallway that leads away from what little stir there is and stop in a small meeting room with a round table and a window looking out onto the street.

"I'm in therapy," I say, and then immediately regret it. The icebreaker had sounded better in my head.

Draco pauses, looks back at me. He doesn't respond for a while, until, "Oh."

"I… it's awful," I say. "I mean, it's supposed to be awful. Apparently. That means it's working"

Draco doesn't seem to quite know what to make of the news. I can't blame him.

"I'm happy for you," he says eventually. "I'm glad you're getting the help you need."

"I suppose I am, too," I reply. "I mean, not so much in the short-term, but I'm holding out hope for those long-term benefits."

He nods slowly. I feel like the biggest idiot on the planet, and the only advantage to that feeling is that the conversation can't possibly get any worse, so I move forward.

"Listen, Draco," I say, stepping forward, "I really owe you an apology."

"I know," he answers.

I laugh, startled. He cracks a smile, too, but smothers it quickly and folds his arms over his chest.

"You should know that I wasn't in a good state when I said what I said to you during that first session of the Moot," I say, moving forward a step at a time. "I felt at the time like I meant it, but I know now that I never really did. I was just – angry at so many other things, and I landed it all on you."

"I know," he says again. This time it doesn't make me laugh.

"I would like to make things better between us," I say, "but I understand if you're opposed to the idea."

His arms are still folded over his chest. He still looks sort of anxious, almost twitchy.

"I'm working to make sure that I don't repeat the mistakes I made that day. It's slow going, but I am learning. And I want you to know that I—"

My words fall off again. I really should have thought this through better. He looks up at me, silent, as I wonder what to say. _That I would never hurt you?_ I already have. _That I'll never do it again?_ I might, some day, if things go sour.

As I'm doing my best to decide how I want the sentence to end, he suddenly cuts me off.

"You don't need to grovel for my forgiveness," he says, sighing. "Forgiveness isn't the hard part."

I frown. "What is the hard part?"

Quicksilver eyes lift to mine and _God_, if I could at least not want him so desperately and eclipsingly that it caused me physical pain, this conversation would go so much more smoothly.

"Knowing what to do afterwards," he says. "I can forgive you, but I can't forget it. I was ready to…"

"I know."

He drops his chin. "And we're both stuck in some emotional limbo. I don't know for sure how you feel and I don't know if it can last long, either way."

I wet my lips. Dr. Moore didn't mention anything about the conversation turning this way.

"I know I'm not in a good place," I say. "I know my behavior was inexcusable. And it seems hard to believe, but when I'm around you, I'm better."

He frowns. "Better."

"Before you came swaggering back into my life, I didn't feel anything. I was ten steps from dead most days, and you injected life back into me."

I wonder if this is too revealing and study his face for clues. He is very, very still, and his poker face is flawless. All I can do is continue and hope I don't make an ass of myself (again).

"You know how when you leave your hands out in the cold for a long time, and then suddenly go back indoors? There's that pain, right? That aching, burning tingle. It's not a great feeling, but it is a _good_ one, when compared to the alternative. And despite everything, it's a sign of progress."

The first flashes of emotion arrive on his face. He takes a deep breath and averts his eyes.

"I wouldn't demand anything from you, least of all a second chance," I say, "but if it's all the same, I would love to keep thawing."

He is staring at the floor. I can sense a subtle, almost imperceptible quavering in his shoulders and down his arms.

"I can't," he says, "not yet."

I open my mouth to respond but find I'm not sure what to say.

"I need to know that you've worked through this," he continues, at long last looking up at me. "I won't let myself get hurt like that again."

I nod slowly.

"Prove that this is real," he says. "Prove that this can last. _Please,_" he continues, "please prove it."

He sounds desperate, and all of a sudden, I am desperate, too. I want to make this better, but—

"How?"

He swallows thickly. "I don't know," he answers, and neither do I.


	13. An Almost Forgiveness

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Fucking right you are," Ginny answers.

This time of day – which is to say, early morning – I'd expect her to still be coming down off a solid six hours of partying. Instead, she's wearing a long t-shirt for pajamas under a fluffy blue robe and matching slippers. She's drinking tea and reading the _Prophet_, looking just a little bit cross at the fact that I'm in the same room as her.

Silence lapses as I consider what words to say next. Before I come up with something, she says—

"Keep going," she says. "You're not off the hook until you've groveled enough."

I laugh, despite myself, and sit down opposite her.

"I shouldn't have implied about you what I did," I say. "I know now that I didn't really mean it. There was other shit going on. You were right all along."

"Maybe you'll listen to me next time."

"Scout's honor," I say, and only remember afterwards that she wouldn't get the reference. "Muggle thing."

"How's therapy going?"

I sigh. "Well, it's been three sessions in as many weeks," I say. "The first one was like getting hot needles through my eyeballs, but the yesterday it was only about as bad as getting flogged."

"Progress," she says, toasting me with her mug of tea ("NOT A MORNING PERSON").

I watch her for a while and consider the fact that it wasn't so long ago looking at her caused me profound emotional pain. She was a walking, talking reminder of the worst months of my life who stubbornly refused to leave the house.

Now all I can see is Ginny, just as she is. Goofy, redheaded, a little bit vindictive, and always brilliant. Looking at her no longer brings heartache, just a sort of fondness.

I wonder if this is what moving on feels like.

"Well," she says, "that was some pretty good groveling."

"I thought so," I answer, smirking.

"I suppose I can let you off for now. But I expect no repeat performances."

"I'll do my best."

She takes another sip of her tea. "I think I'm going to move in with Lavinia."

I give a start. It takes me a moment to place the name. "Ms. Don't-Take-Her-Out-in-Public?"

"Don't get me wrong," she continues, "she's still not the sort of person you take out in public, and I can't imagine us having anything but an extremely open relationship, but…" She shakes her head. "I don't know. I keep coming back to her. I think I'd like to keep doing that for a while."

"Wow," I say. Then, "I'm happy for you."

"Yeah, well, now that you're not at risk of complete emotional shutdown, I should probably leave you to it."

"Progress," I say, and she laughs.

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry," I say for a second time that day.<p>

"Well, I should think so," Neville answers.

He's much less cutting than Ginny about it, at least. He still seems a bit miffed, but at least he's not demanding that I grovel forgiveness until he's satisfied.

"I was a bastard," I say. "And drunk, on top of it. I shouldn't have yelled at you. You were only trying to help."

He releases a breath, smiles at me. He gestures with one hand for me to sit. We're at his office in the Consul building, and with the Moot now well and truly over, there are no reporters hovering to pry for details of our meeting. I sit down across from his desk.

"Did you talk to Draco?" he asks as he goes to his office's fireplace to put on some tea.

I sigh. "Yeah."

"How'd it go?"

"Long answer."

"Short story long or novel long?"

"Three-part series long," I answer, and I hear Neville chuckle. "I really want to make things right between us, but I have no idea how. He doesn't, either."

He hums. Once the kettle is heating and the infuser filled with loose tea, he comes over to the chair next to me and sits down. "Point of advice? If it's wanted, of course."

"Wouldn't say no."

"Draco likes you for who you are," he says. "He always did, even back in Hogwarts. That's why he was so jealous."

I find it a little difficult to believe, but I suppose Neville would know.

"The closer you get to the person he remembers, the better off you'll be," he continues. "He really does care about you, Harry. You should have seen his face when he talked about you."

Something hot and lovely-painful twists in my chest. I try not to smile, or at least not too wide. Hope – real and genuine and not forced – not something I'm used to these days. It's nice.

"You should come by for dinner sometime," he says. "Meet Hannah."

"I haven't seen her for ages," I answer. "She's pregnant now?"

"Extremely pregnant," he laughs. "Twins."

"Shit," I say, and he laughs even harder. "Good luck."

"I'll need it."

"Neville?"

I look over my shoulder and do what I imagine must be a flawless doubletake.

It's Draco, standing in the open doorway of his office, a stack of parchments in one hand.

"Sorry," he says, "I just wanted to drop off—"

"Oh!" Neville says, rising from his chair. "The Derbyshire file, I completely forgot. Thanks."

He smiles at Neville but his eyes are on me. I push myself to a stand, hoping that I don't look as nervous as I feel.

"I actually have to take care of this before this evening," Neville says. "I know I promised tea, Harry, but—"

"No, no, it's fine," I say, "absolutely fine. Send me an owl; we'll set up dinner at some point."

I offer my brief goodbyes as Neville takes the kettle off the fire with a charm and sets to working on whatever the Derbyshire file is, and I leave his office, closing the door behind me.

Draco is outside, hovering by the wall, wringing his hands.

I wet my lips. "Catch much of the conversation?"

"A bit," he answers.

I wonder if he heard the part about how badly I wanted to work things out with him. Perhaps it doesn't even matter – I've never really been difficult to read, and as he stands there looking gorgeous and nervous, I'm sure just how badly I want him is written all over my face.

"How's therapy?" he asks after a moment of silence stretches between us.

"Good," I say. "Well, I mean, objectively awful, but good in the grand scheme."

He laughs, just once, softly. He rubs his hands together.

"You seem to be doing better," he says. "It was great to see you in there with Neville, getting along."

"It was great to do it. It's really been ages since…"

I don't quite know the right words to finish that sentence without seeming utterly pathetic. Luckily, Draco seems to understand, and says, "Yeah."

I smile at him. He swallows.

"I was sort of meaning to talk to you," he says.

"Sort of?"

"I was – I have a bit of a confession. I feel like I should have said more – before, when we last spoke."

"Oh," I say for lack of anything better.

He moves toward me. The closeness electrifies me, slowly at first, spreading out from little pinpoints on my skin to all up and down my limbs. I recognize instantly the look on his face, and it makes me physically ache.

"I feel like I should have warned you," he says, "that just because I don't know how you can prove to me you're better doesn't mean I don't want you to prove it. I wasn't trying to be obstinate or – or imply that I just wanted away from you."

"Oh," I say again. He's very close now. My fingers itch with a powerful urge to touch him, and it takes more willpower than I care to admit to resist.

"I really do want you to be better," he says. His pupils dilate as he stops, a few inches away from me, his hands still wringing. "Because I really do want you stable. Because despite everything that's happened, I have never once been able to stop myself from wanting you."

I didn't think words could actually make me dizzy, but there it is. "Oh."

"Even when I hated you, a part of me still wanted you," he says and I am really trying to keep my hands to myself, I swear I am, because there are various words from Dr. Moore swirling through my head like _respectful boundaries_ and _no expectations_, but he is so very close to me and he looks almost frightened, and would it be pushing boundaries or implying expectations if I were to soothe him, to touch his jaw?

"Oh." I must sound like a complete idiot.

"And I hope you keep that in mind," he continues, eyes fixed on me. It would be so easy to run my fingertips along his jaw, to bury my face in his hair. "I hope you always remember how badly I want you and likely always will."

This is absolutely unbearable. I either have to touch him or leave, because this limbo is torture. "Draco—"

"And I certainly hope," he says, rushed, almost babbling, "that you don't use this incredible advantage you have over me to kiss me right at this second—"

It's a damn big gamble but I take it; I crash into him and, with every ounce of the desperation and heartache I'd been holding back, kiss him. He responds immediately, and I can feel his fingernails scrape across the back of my neck, feel his body press into mine, and God I did not even realize how badly I needed this until it all comes rushing back. I wind my arms around him and pull him forward. I kiss him thoroughly and deeply, because if all I can say is "oh," then I need to write a novel about how much I love him with this kiss.

And I realize, mid-kiss, that I just admitted to myself that I am in love with Draco Malfoy.

Fuck.

He breaks apart, panting and gripping me all the harder.

"Is—" I stammer. "Are we—?"

"I don't know," he answers at once. "I don't know what we are ore where we stand. Can we worry about it later?"

I turn him, press him into the wall, rake my hands up his back. "God, yes."

He shudders underneath my touch. "Can you kiss me again?"

I do.


	14. A Step Forward

I hear the shouted questions and see the flashpots bursting in the corners of my vision right up until I step into the hearth and back into Grimmauld Place.

Not that it hasn't gotten easier to deal with journalists these days, but I still find myself disliking encounters with them and going far, sometimes almost inappropriately far, out of my way to avoid them. I thought I'd gotten pretty good at it, at least until—

"Is it true?"

I look up as I charm the soot from my robes, then give a start. It's Draco, sitting right on the edge of the sofa facing the hearth, hands on his knees.

These days I never really know when I'll see him. Over the past few weeks our relationship has been an irregular pattern of long periods of silence interspersed with brief, torrid, painfully arousing instances of snogging him up walls. I feel like it's mostly a product of him trying to keep his distance and not being able to. Sometimes I feel like I should do the responsible thing and keep myself at arm's length until I sort myself out, but I only have so much self-control.

"Uh, what?" I answer. "Also, hi."

"Hi," he returns, rising off the couch. He has a copy of _The Daily Prophet_ in one hand. "Is it true?"

I eye the headline, creased down the middle thanks to his grip. _Harry Potter Lord Black to propose veto powers, sources confirm._

"Oh, that." I shrug my coat off, toss it over a nearby chair. "Yeah. I mean, I hadn't really intended it to get out this soon. I wanted to run it by a few Consul members and Shacklebolt. I didn't think it would be leaked."

Draco is staring at me. The grip on his copy of the _Prophet_ seems to tighten.

"I think I finally see what you mean about the wizarding world being resistant to change," I say. "It's not a new concept, veto power, but for all the outcry of how disgracefully it defies tradition, you'd have thought I'd proposed a flag-burning rally. Haven't even officially proposed it yet and already—"

The sentence abruptly ends when I am knocked backward into the wall. Draco is kissing me like a drowning man gasping for air and I immediately forget the rest of my sentence, what we had been talking about, or that we had been talking at all.

It's going to be one of those snogging days, apparently.

"Mmnm," I say against his mouth when my mind kicks back into gear. I reach up to card my fingers through his hair and return the enthusiasm. These random sessions always leave me desperately hard and feeling rather like a lovesick schoolgirl, but never so much as to make me think of stopping them.

It's not until my fingertips move around to trace his cheeks that I realize—

"Draco—" I pull away, alarmed, "—are you crying?"

Fuck, he is. Bloodshot quicksilver eyes stare up at me, but there's no sadness in his features – in fact, now that I think about it, he seems—

"Harry," he says, though it comes out as a croak, "that's wonderful."

"I – well, I mean, it's not a bad idea, but I don't think a system of checks and balances is quite worth crying over—"

He laughs wetly. "No," he says. "Harry. That's not – this is it."

I don't know what he's talking about but I'd rather like him to stop crying, even though the tears are apparently happy. "What's it?"

"This is – this is _it_," he says. "This is you, coming into your inheritance with enthusiasm. You, showing renewed concern for the world, concern that's positive instead of negative. It's what I've been waiting for."

He presses himself back into me and buries his face in the crux of my neck. Despite his explanation, "I still have no idea what you're talking about."

"Your idea is brilliant," he says, hands gripping at my shoulders. "You are brilliant. Harry, this is the _proof_."

"What p—oh. _Oh._" Little tremors of excitement spark down toward my fingertips. I draw away and look down at him, just in time for him to lean back up and kiss me again, and not that I'm not interested in continuing along that particular path, but I feel like I really should confirm— "You mean you—?"

"This is the sort of man I want inheriting the Malfoy Estate," he says. "The sort of man I could spend my life with, who I want to sire my children—"

"Jesus," I say. "Draco, are you sure?"

"Yes."

"I'm still in therapy," I remind him, because this is capable of being the best news I've received in years, and I want to be completely sure it's happening before I let this excitement in me solidify. "It's not like I'm at 100%, not yet—"

"I never wanted that," he says. "All I wanted was _you_. Any iteration of the man I'd fallen in love with, healthy and stable—"

But I stop listening after those three deafening words – _fallen in love_ – and at once I gather him around the waist and haul him forward and up into a kiss. I am almost embarrassed by the slowly-spreading ecstatic joy in my chest, and I sweep him into the wall and deepen the kiss just to make it perfectly clear.

"I love you," I say into his mouth, "and you have no idea how long I've been waiting to hear—"

"I love you," Draco says, hands knotting in my hair. I shudder, press into him. My heart is slamming in my neck.

"Sounds just as good the second time."

He hooks one leg against my hip and kisses me again, holding on as though for dear life, as though he might slip away into the ether if he didn't have a solid grip. Perhaps he might. I hold him just as tightly to make sure he doesn't. My hands start at his sides, move downward, his hips, his thighs, his calves. Pinned to the wall as he is, it's all too easy for me to explore every inch of him. He shudders under my touch.

God, he's so responsive. I want to map every inch of his body with my fingertips, my tongue, undo him, take him apart piece by piece.

"I'll say it however many times you want," he says, voice taut, and I know he's just as desperate as I am, "if you take me upstairs."

And if I am overeager, I blame the weeks of sporadic snogging sessions followed by long periods of distance. And if I quite literally throw him over my shoulder and physically carry him up the steps, I do not at all consider that to be unreasonable.

The sound he makes is equal parts laughter and yelping "This isn't quite what I meant—"

"Then you should have clarified better," I answer, and he laughs again.

We make it upstairs and I toss him down onto the bed, immediately covering his body with my own. His arms slip around my neck, his stomach arches up against mine, and I claw at the fastenings on his trousers. He lifts his hips and I tug them down and away while he pushes his hands up under my jumper.

"I am so in love with you that it is embarrassing," I say to him, and in his Oxford shirt and nothing else, he looks absolutely sinful. That gorgeous, slender cock of his is flushed and half-hard. I drag my fingernails down his stomach and he whines, arching his body into the touch. "And you are far too gorgeous to be real." I bend down and lock my mouth over the long lines of his throat, working out of my own trousers.

His breath hisses. "Harry—"

"Let me suck you off," I say into his skin which drags a sort of desperate, keening whine out of him.

"Couldn't you just fuck me? I'm so wound up I don't think I can wait."

The sound I make is a bit undignified. My hands fumble; I look up at him. He stares back at me, all tense anticipation.

"That—" I falter. "Yes. I mean, _yes_, that's – absolutely, yes, but – what happened to saving yourself for marriage?"

"Turns out I'm not patient enough," he says lowly, and the words bypass my brain and go straight into my cock because, _fuck_.

"Patience is rubbish," I say, throwing out my hand and using a quick, wandless spell to summon a vial of lubricant from the bottom of the sock drawer. "Fuck patience."

"No, fuck _me_," he corrects.

I groan again. "Yes. Jesus, yes."

I kiss him wildly and nearly break the damn vial trying to work the cap off blindly. His legs are moving along my sides, and he is bucking and grinding his pelvis against mine and _fuck_ the skin of his thighs are smooth, and my cock feels electric sliding along them and stupid fucking stupid vial _open goddammit_—

I spill half the contents of it onto my palm and onto the bedspread, which I decide to be angry about later. For now, I work myself upright between his thighs and immediately press a hand against his thigh, sliding upwards toward—

"Fuck!" he half-screams, half-sobs, bucking violently against my hand, and _Jesus_ he looks fucking delicious. I work my hand harder, slicking my fingers in the excess lubricant running down towards the bed, pushing one in— "_Fuck!_ Harry, that – hhaaahnn—!"

My mind is a rage of confliction. On the one hand he looks so impossibly, scorchingly hot bucking and grinding on my fingers that I want to get him off with just that, in turn providing me with ample wank fodder for the rest of my life. On the other hand, if I don't fuck him open in the next ten seconds there is a very real chance I might actually die.

I add a second finger and he keens, throwing his head back and scrabbling at the bed spread. The ring of muscle is drawn so tightly around my fingers that it makes my cock physically ache with the base desire to take, conquer, fuck – the movements of my hands become more clumsy, more frantic, I work him open as quickly as I can because—

"Enough!" he nearly sobs. "Stop, it's enough, please, this is torture—!"

He's loosened somewhat around my fingers, and good enough, because I am right there with him. Twenty-eight years of figurative foreplay and four months of literal foreplay are taking their toll. I slick my cock with the excess lube on my palm, grab him by one calf, line up, and drive into him.

He's making some kind of sound, but I can hear it. I am deafened by the sensation of it, the hot, wet vise clamping down around my cock, the bucking, thrashing body around it, the hands scrabbling along my back, _fuck_, I sink my teeth into his shoulder and gather every last scrap of self-control I possess not to just _move_, to fuck him bloody – _he's a virgin_, I remind myself, which leads to the startling and intensely arousing realization that this is that irreversible claim I had wanted, fucking Draco Malfoy, creating that indelible mark—

Fuck fuck _fuck fuck_ I start to move for no other reason than I can no longer stay still; I hold him by both hips and fuck him, deeply and thoroughly, and already I am blind to the rest of the world. I grip him and I fuck him and he spreads himself under me, hands knotted in my hair, head thrown back, panting, gasping in time as I fuck him.

My body is taut; every muscle in me is whipcord-tough, and when I next look down at him, _Jesus_—

He is coming – spectacularly, gorgeously, he is coming, screaming, cock completely untouched, as I fuck him and Christ, I'm not far behind – I grip him all the tighter, bury my face in his hair – the muscles of my back and hips strain but keep moving on raw and animalistic autopilot until I feel as though I am being ripped in half, and I am coming and coming along with him, emptying into him in blinding, shredding pulses that leave me weaker and weaker and softer and shakier—

Lips on my jaw, shaking hands on my back, hot and shaky breath in my hair. I can feel each sensation grow stronger as my mind comes down from the high.

"Harry," I hear him say, and I turn my head to kiss him. I feel his fingertips on my spine, stripes of his come drizzling down my stomach, and how can anything this perfect possibly be real?

"I love you," I hear him say, and I thread my fingers through his sweat-streaked hair.

"I love you," I answer, and I do, and there is nothing else in the world that matters quite so much.


	15. An Ever After

"The invitations need to be ready by next month," Malfoy Senior says after a lapse of silence, and I am tempted to start beating my head into the desk. "I think we should take the Muggle Prime Minister off the list until he starts cooperating with Shacklebolt on his executive mandate."

"Or we could try to not turn your son's wedding into a political maneuver."

"We are Consul members," he answers idly, thumbing through the pile of parchments in front of him. "Everything we do is a political maneuver. Tradition would demand that it is held in a Wiltshire church, but given how hard we've been pushing the religious tolerance referendum, it may send a better message if—"

"Can we literally talk about anything else?" I ask, setting the quill down because I know I'm not going to finish making notes on the bill in front of me.

"If I didn't know better, Potter," he says, peering at me over his pair of rectangular reading spectacles, "I'd say that the wedding didn't excite you."

"The wedding excites me beyond articulation," I say. "The wedding _planning_ makes me want to throw myself off the Consul building."

"I'd advise getting used to it," he tells me. "This is your life for the next seven months."

"Careful, Father, we can't afford to scare him away."

Like a lighthouse in fog, like a silver lining to a cloud, Draco appears as a beacon and a symbol of beauty and hope and light in dark places and, most vitally, not having to talk to Lucius Malfoy anymore.

"Draco," I say, and he smiles at me. I rise out of my desk chair and cross toward him to kiss him thoroughly and generously hello. "Please save me from your father."

"Absolutely not," he answers. "I only managed to shake him by faking an emergency with Shacklebolt."

"Your resistance to the process will only make it more difficult," Malfoy Senior says from behind me, coldly.

"I have news," Draco says.

"If it's about Lady Grantham and the magical creatures bill," I say, "tell her that I am not going to waste my time discussing it with her when she knows the bill is toothless."

"Good," Malfoy Senior says from behind, "so you have plenty of time to discuss wedding plans."

"I've had a change of heart," I say at once. "The bill deserves a fair shot. Let's go find her now and talk about it for several hours."

"It's not about Lady Grantham," Draco says.

"Will it in any way distract from wedding planning?"

"Unlikely," Draco says. "Actually, it may have the opposite effect. We need to move the date forward, to April."

Lucius turns around in the chair and the wood creaks. "_April?_"

"Afraid so."

"Impossible," he says at once. "We can't plan a wedding of this scale in four months!"

"We could elope," I suggest.

"We could also become sherpas," Malfoy Senior snaps. "That does not mean it will happen."

Well, it was worth a shot.

"It has to be April," Draco says. "If we put it off any later, I won't be able to fit into the suit."

Lucius narrows his eyes. "What on earth are you _talking_—"

But the sentence abruptly ends. Sudden, brutal realization dawns on his features.

Despite my resistance to all things wedding planning, I am curious. "What? What's wrong with the suit?"

"Draco," Malfoy Senior breathes, rising out of his chair. He moves forward, seizes a now smiling Draco by both arms. He seems like he means to say something, but for a while nothing comes out.

Draco laughs at his expression, and I suddenly realize that Draco's eyes are a bit misty.

Now sufficiently alarmed, I demand, "What the hell is wrong with the suit?"

"Draco," Malfoy Senior says again, half-laughing. Then, "You had sex out of wedlock?"

Some pent-up energy Draco'd been holding back rushes out of him all at once and he starts laughing. "Did you honestly think we weren't?"

_Holy shit_.

"Holy shit!" I say. "Draco—!"

"Surprise!" he laughs, covering his mouth with his forearm. "Six weeks, the healer just confirmed."

At some point between hearing the confirmation and the ensuing hug, my mind sort of blanks. I don't remember moving toward him and gathering him into my arms, and I don't remember at what point Draco's grip crossed the threshold of tight hug into attempting to crush my ribcage. My mind is entirely dominated by the fact that "You are _pregnant,_ holy shit, we're going to have a child."

"Fantastic," Malfoy Senior says, voice thick. "First we have to move the wedding up unreasonably far, and now I have to come up with a way put a positive spin on the fact that you conceived before marriage. Don't think they won't notice!"

Draco laughs into my shoulder, a bit wetly. "Aren't you happy, Father?"

"_Happy?_ I am – Draco, I am _ecstatic_ – and also absolutely furious that you – Merlin's hat, boy—!"

He grabs Draco out of my arms and hugs him tightly.

"I'm going to have a child," I say to myself, because a part of me still can't quite process it as real.

"Do _not_ tell your mother until she is sitting down," Lucius says sternly.

Draco laughs again, gripping his father more tightly. "Noted."

"And for Merlin's sake, do _not_ let this leak," he continues. "We have to do this carefully – correctly – I'll need to talk to people – I have to find Marianna—"

And then he leaves, pushing his way out of my office door and hurrying in a frenzied, distinctly un-Malfoyish way through the corridor leading out of the Consul building.

Draco is left, still laughing, shaking with emotion. I take the opportunity to grab him again and kiss him with every drop of perfect, wild joy, desperately and with bruising force, and I am going to have a child, _my fiancé is pregnant and I am going to have a child_.

When he pulls back a moment later, it's with his fingertips on my neck and my knee between his thighs. He grins at me. "Any passing remarks?"

At once, my mind comes up with a thousand things all at once: I love you. I can't wait to share this with you. I am scared out of my mind, somehow in the best way possible. I am in awe at everything that brought us up to this point. If I could go back I wouldn't do a thing differently.

But even if I could speak quickly and articulately enough to say all those things, none of them would do the feeling justice. Instead, I say, "Holy shit."

And Draco smirks at me. "Let's hope for the child's sake that he inherits your sparkling wit."

"Don't ruin this moment for me," I laugh.

"I doubt anything could," he answers, and he's right.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Aaaaaaand scene!

Thank you so much to all of you for reading, especially those of you who stuck it out from the start. I love you most of all!

If you liked it, leave a review! Reviews are my crack and I always need a fix!


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